Annie's Drama
by Raikim4never
Summary: Originally, Chris planned for there to be only twenty two competitors, but an unsigned note forces him to reconsider. Now, twenty three contestants are in for a horrifying competition at the hands of the host, before their lives change drastically.
1. Prologue: Preparing for the Plank

Prologue – Preparing for the Plank

On a dock, somewhere is Muskoka, Ontario:

"Hey, are we rolling?" A man asked, practicing his smiles.

"No, not yet," a brown-haired man, who was currently wrestling with an unnaturally unhelpful camera case told him.

"How 'bout now?" The first man asked again a few seconds later, tapping his foot impatiently for emphasis.

"The camera is still being set up, Maclean. Do we _look _ready to you?" The second man -an intern- snapped.

"Fine..." Maclean muttered, annoyed at the delay.

* * *

Elsewhere, a young teenager (one of twenty three) was sitting on semi-large boat that she had all to herself, and smiling. She was going to be on Total Drama! She was so proud! And... what if she won? That would be amazing! She had a ton of stuff she could think to buy, for herself and her parents and the farm and for Big Bertha...

Beth Ward shook her head. She'd have to win before she thought about what she'd do with the money. She glanced behind her, and felt a slight stab of pain in her jaw. She winced, and rubbed mouth. She it had been a week so far and she still wasn't used to the stupid braces. She just hoped she'd remember the headgear... and that they wouldn't be filmed while sleeping. Silently, she frowned. Hadn't the headgear been outdated since some point in the nineties? Oh well.

* * *

Deven Joseph Em, better known as DJ, was pacing. He knew he probably shouldn't be pacing, but he was. He was anxious. It was odd, though, seeing as how he was usually very relaxed. Though, he could think of why he was so anxious easily. Part of it was the fact that he wanted to get to the resort, she if there were any animals around or such. Get away from all this water. Second, he hadn't been to an island since his family moved from Jamaica when he was four. The biggest contribution to his anxiety was, probably, the competition though. Would they be nice...ish? He could probably deal if he found someone nice, or funny, or a fellow animal lover. But what if everyone was a no-nonsense, eyes-on-the-prize type nasty person?

DJ shook his head and resisted the urge to chuckle at his paranoia. There were twenty two other people. If anything, it would be a combination of both. So there would be people he both could and couldn't befriend. Kind of like school.

* * *

Gwen Moore wasn't particularly happy with her current predicament. She hadn't actually _expected _to be picked, after all. Oh well, the money would help her mom at least. Provided she won, of course. Gwen was currently drawing in her sketchbook, a picture of her mom and little brother and home, waiting for her. The next thing she knew, her eyes felt slightly wet. She snapped her sketchbook shut and blinked away her tears, before heading to the bathroom to wash away the signs of them. No WAY she was going to look like some weak, weepy girl for her first impression on _national television_. After she was sure all signs of the tears were gone, she opened her diary, and began ranting about the world, the how annoying it was she'd been chosen, how the boat's terrifyingly large dips were starting to make her just a little queasy, anything and everything. Little by little, her homesickness finally started to leave her.

* * *

Geoff Snow (who vowed to **never** say his last name on camera) was feeling _just _a bit torn at the moment. On the one hand, he was going to meet a bunch of new guys and girls to hang with, (maybe some of them even lived near his home town!) but on the other hand, he was being hit with a light flash of homesickness. His brothers, David, Randel and Ozzie (never Oswald) had promised to write but... where exactly was he heading to, anyhow? What if his bros... no, he couldn't think thoughts like that and bum himself out before he even _got _to the island! Geoff unzipped his bag and found hit football, and began tossing it in the air and catching it. Which was pretty darn boring, actually, and he finally gave up trying to entertain himself that way after two minutes or so. After giving that up, he began exploring and, after a few minutes, found a radio. Listening to it, he recalled his trip two years ago to California, where he saw the most beautiful girl ever surfing on her hands, not even aware he'd begun 'dancing' to the music.

* * *

Annie White (who thought she had the most ironic name _ever_) was jittery. She didn't know why- no, she knew perfectly well why. Yet she didn't let herself pace. She didn't dare. She didn't know why, but she didn't dare to. She was worried about being found, though. She didn't want her father to find her. Why oh why did she sign up for this? Because she had a mission, that's why. She had to make allies, but not friends. No, that was dumb, what better allies are there than actually, honest-to-goodness friends? Ones that aren't waiting to leave you at a critical moment, that's what. But then, if they were _actual _friends like-

She shook her head, trying to clear the thoughts that seemed to be taking on a life of their own, which proved useless. Was her disguise good enough?

_What disguise? _An annoying thought in the back of her head supplied in a confused tone. Annie's eye twitched and she shook her head. The disembodied thought had a point, she wasn't actually wearing a disguise, just a glamour. A poorly done one, so it was almost assuredly _not _good enough. The Brazilian sighed and leaned back, sending her chair (and herself with it) over backwards.

* * *

Lindsay Mills was much very much relaxed. She didn't know if she'd actually win -in fact, she didn't think she would. She had signed up to show her beauty to the world. Maybe she'd brighten up a life or two! And besides, though it would be nice to win the money and prove she didn't have to rely on her dad... well... she could always fall back on her dad's money. Granted, Paula and June would probably tease her a little, but that didn't matter, did it? They were nice otherwise. Actually, wasn't it June that told her that... advice?

'Act stupid. You're book dumb and a ditz, but you're not particularly stupid. Act stupid. People will underestimate you.'

That sounded like a good idea at the time, and she'd promised her older sister that she would. The (false) blonde wondered if it was a good idea now, though. No, she shouldn't think like that! She'd promised June! Her sister! She had to keep her promise!

* * *

Heather 'Ice' Whitfield had better things to do then worry about the competition, like filing her nails down to a lethal sharpness. So why she was doing the former was completely beyond her. It's not like anyone could out-scheme her, she'd be scheming for years. So why, exactly was she so worried?

'Because you're not perfect. One slip up or nasty comment could get you kicked out for good,' an exceedingly annoying voice in her head supplied, 'plus, you can't know you're better than the competition until you actually see them'.

She withheld a scoff, because she'd be scoffing at herself and look weird. The disembodied voice had a point, although she was worried about where the heck it came from.

* * *

Duncan Pawell was pacing. He couldn't help it, he was bored. He wanted to get to the resort already! There wasn't exactly a lot to do on this stupid boat, after all. He'd already tagged every room he could find with his signature – a skull. The only room he hadn't gotten was the captain's room, for obvious reasons. Now, he had nothing to do except twirl his knife in his hand and pace. Duncan sat down, finally. He had far too much pacing experience for his liking. Not much to do in a jail cell. Something this room reminded him far to much of, he decided, and he quickly left for the deck of the boat. Fresh air was a lot better than the cramped waiting room, anyway. No sign of the resort yet, earning a groan of annoyance.

* * *

Tyler Foreman was starting to regret his decision of water skiing to the island. It had to have been at least twenty minutes now, and the resort was nowhere in site. His hands had gone cold, hard and numb, and his legs felt the same way. Water was splashing against his face and... other parts and man, was it COLD! This would not end well, he knew it. And he knew his father was expecting him to show how Foremans (Foremen?) were great athletes, but there was _no _way he was going to make a good impression to the others. Of course, he was sure that his father's words were more wishful thinking than anything else- he had heard the... 'talks' his coaches had with his father. Immediately, he banished those thoughts from his mind -he needed total and complete focus just to stay upright, and those kind of thoughts were distracting and _really _not helpful.

* * *

Harold McGrady (the fifth) was proud to say he wasn't bored at all by the long journey from the mainland to the resort. He was too busy jamming on his electric keyboard. His oldest sister (Petunia) had unintentional gotten ET stuck in his head, and, while he hated Katy Perry, he figured this was the best way to get the song out of his head. The song, unfortunately, served to remind him of his sister, which led to thoughts about home, and a stab of homesickness. Immediately, he stopped playing the song, and began searching his luggage for a deck of cards. His counselor from Muskrat Boys had advised him to get his mind off of things that reminded him of home when he got homesick during the camping trips, so doing some magic tricks he learned at Magic Camp would probably help. Come to think of it, why was he so homesick? His older brother and younger sister -Johnathan and Rosie- didn't like him and it's not like he spent any of his summers at home anyway. His parents and Petunia, he supposed. It's not like he didn't spend three quarters of the year with them.

Ah! There they are!

Trent Cooke strummed on his guitar, nine times. Just to be safe, seeing as how he was kind of... accident prone. That, and he had suffered yet another foul break-up, so his head probably wasn't going to be in the game. It was annoying, and a bit disturbing how girls flocked to him, then broke up with him two months later, exactly two months later, and another girl would immediately begin to hit on him. Was this some sort of agreement by the girls at his school? Were any of them actually interested in him, or were they just interested in the coolest guy in school? Trent shook his head, those kinds of thoughts probably weren't healthy at the moment. Wishing for what wasn't the first time that he'd brought his skateboard, he began to strum on his guitar, and took a breath, ready to begin a new song. But first-

"For granddad..."

* * *

Bridgette Fisher was busy standing on her hands, as odd as that may sound. It was quite the chore for her, seeing as how she was horribly uncoordinated on land. She had, however, been doing it for the past nineteen minutes, two more and she would break her own personal-

The crash heralded the fact that that particular record was safe. Bridgette, however, wasn't quite as lucky.

Rubbing her head, she managed to pick herself up, and chuckled at herself. Oh well. She popped an aspirin in her mouth and that was that for the headache. She smiled, happy, as always, that her healing touch extended to _herself _as well.

* * *

Noah Vaidyut (who had sworn on his Kosmic Kaos account to never allow his last name to be heard by a single person on or off the island) was busy with his favorite pastime -reading. Specifically, he was going over one of his siblings college books he had snuck into his bag. Isabel would be enraged, but it wasn't like he hadn't faced her 'torture' before. For a college student, she was completely pathetic. No creativity at all, she was stuck to typical 'harassment', if one could call it that. Pinching, rumor spreading, getting one of his siblings that actually lived in the same house to punch his arm on a daily basis for a week or two... the kind of stuff he'd faced all his life. Everyone he'd ever met had that mentality for some indescribable reason- they were petty. And idiots. It was enough to drive someone of his intelligence to the brink of insanity, but he was proud to say that he'd managed to overcome it with his sanity intact. Which was probably the most difficult challenge he'd ever faced -outside of a video game- seeing as how his parents never allowed him to skip a grade, something he had always found both baffling and horrifying.

He sighed, maybe, just maybe, there would be someone intelligent enough to actually be a companion of sorts on the island, though he sincerely doubted it.

* * *

Leshawna Jones was practicing her funky dance-moves, at least for a few minutes. After that, she sat down and revised her letters to her friends, siblings, and that cousin of hers who thought of her as a role model. Satisfied, she began a letter to John -never Johnathan, he hated Johnathan- McGrady, one of the kids she was a counselor for at the old community center. He'd been starting way too many fights with his older sister and younger brother, and dragging his younger sister into them. Leshawna smiled, she'd only just begun to counsel him, and he was a good bit older than her, but he was starting to show improvement. Her thoughts briefly went to the competition she was about to enter. Nervous as she was, she knew she would win, because she was a fighter, who _always _stuck it out. She would win for her younger siblings, for her cousins, for her gals back home, for her... students, she supposed, back at the community center. And her parents, of course, she couldn't forget them!

* * *

Katie Clark was leaning on the loveseat with her best-best-best friend Sadie Stone, who was asleep on her shoulder. She smiled, but kind of hoped that they weren't filming already -there were enough rumors about their sexuality as it was. She glanced over at her best friend, and secretly was a bit proud of herself, she had made their matching outfits herself, and if things continued the way they were, maybe her dream of being a fashion designer would come true. She didn't have to be world-famous or anything, just design clothes and Sadie would sell them, just like at their ice cream shop.

Sadie smiled in her sleep, dreaming of Katie and her when they first met, and when her father had taken them to his favorite shooting range (scaring the two girls, who had been six, out of their wits at the time); of when they started middle school together; of their dreams to be married within a year of each other to the two boys that were perfect for each other... Someone more sweet like Katie for her, and someone more intelligent like her for Katie...

For some reason, both the boys in her dream had dark skin.

* * *

Ezekiel Fuller was rocking back and forth in a combination of excitement and terror. It had been forever since he'd actually been with other kids his age for a prolonged period of time. Last time was an hour for a spelling bee he had won and the longest he knew about (he certainly couldn't remember it) was a couple of months for kindergarten (before he had been pulled out).

But that was years ago, and he'd been studying teens for years now, in the magazines he'd found around the house. He hoped it would be enough, and it wouldn't end like kindergarten had. Of course, the money was exceptionally important, but he needed the 'interaction' more, apparently. And, of course, he had to help the girls if they ever needed it.

'Remember Ezekiel,' his father had told him, 'you're strong because of your farm work, eh. Make sure to look after the girls there, and help 'em if they can't keep up.'

He'd make sure to do just that. He wasn't about to stand back and watch someone flail around in need! Even if people seem to do that to him a lot for some reason.

* * *

Cody Andersan was a busy flirt, or so he'd like to think. He'd already triple checked to make sure he had deodorant on (there was **no way **he was repeated that incident from two years ago), he'd taken some of that awful-tasting breath freshener, and he even had his brand-new laptop in his bag. Not that that would actually be of any help picking up any of the girls- except for a rare breed, but still. He shuddered. Breed? Was he thinking like Charles (that awful counselor from camp last year) again? Great, _now _he had to wash his brain out, and he was fresh out of brain bleach.

* * *

Eva Mason was doing what anyone who knew her vaguely well would guess her to be doing, lifting weights while listening to her music. She was also thinking about her competition, she doubted she'd find anyone who would be a challenge physically (if her stunt-work proved anything, it was that she could _handle _anything) but she had to admit to herself that she could be beaten in terms of mental challenges or anything that would test her temper.

Eva frowned (more), why the heck should she be worried? She'd lock down on her temper, and she'd lead whatever team (if this was anything like Survivor, there'd be teams) she was part of to victory. Unless there were any cheaters, traitors or liars. Then the team would be down one member. Quickly.

* * *

Owen Wainwright was resisted the incredibly powerful to jump around like a grasshopper on a sugar rush, even he realized that would probably do damage to the boat. He was so excited! Babes in bikinis, all-you-can-eat (sort of) three times a day, a bunch of new people and his farts could echo all across the lake (it was a camp, so there had to be a lake) He couldn't wait!

* * *

Courtney Luz was waiting patiently. This, however, was starting to make her legs cramp up horribly, which resulted in her being forced to get up and walk around, which didn't look nearly as professional. She had to look professional- it would make a good impression and thus increase her chance of winning. She could only imagine how proud her parents would be of her if she won. And besides, if you start something you have to finish, and finish first. That's the most important thing. The island would be no different, not to anyone who matters, and if she could finish first there, she knew she'd be successful in life. And she would. She didn't have any other options.

* * *

Justin Lyht was sitting on the loveseat of his boat, looking at his reflection in one of his personal mirrors. And, not for the first time, he felt an odd mix of fascination, amazement, and pride for his looks, and longing and hatred for something, though he didn't know what.

What could he possibly feel longing for? He just had to smile, and anything he wanted would be given to him, and girls (and quite a few guys) would swoon. He could go anywhere, have anything have any girl. What- what could he possibly want that he didn't have? The money he was going to win was the only thing he could think of.

And hate. How was it that he could even feel something like that? It was such an ugly emotion. It just wasn't possible for him to have any unattractive feature, everyone said so. Except that one stupid, crazy, blind redhead he had been on one (blind, literally) date with. But- what else could such a strong feeling of loathing be? And... and, what was it he hated? He didn't know. No one would ever tell him. They never even believed he was capable of something like that. He didn't believe it, either.

* * *

Elizabeth Inglis (though it was just Izzy- anything else and you'd wake up in a tree) was prancing around happily. Finally-finally she was going to that crazy summer camp in the middle of northern wherever! Granted, it had taken her three weeks of camping outside that one producer's door, but she got in! She was going to have tons of fun, she just knew it. It wouldn't be like when she spent time with the RCMP, that's for sure. It's not like she _meant _to blow the base up, and nobody got hurt, they were just sore that they couldn't blow stuff up as easily as she could. Or maybe they weren't, but hey, she had the knack for making exploding stuff! Thinking on it, hadn't she once been thinking about blowing that annoying scratchy jungle gym at the park up once when she was twelve, and then it just... did?

Izzy grinned, she didn't know how she did it, but she didn't doubt that that had been her somehow. Not that she was going to take credit and get arrested, of course. But then, with the RSMP looking for her, it didn't particularly matter. But hey, it might affect how easy (and fun) it was to hide from them!

* * *

Chef Darnell Hatchet (who would not under any circumstances allow his first name to be uttered, under penalty of death) stood in an old mess hall, sweeping the floor. At the same time, he was muttering things under his breath, mostly about how he was always getting the short end of the stick when it came to things like this and how he should have just listened to his mother.

* * *

Hi! I'm not dead! Hooray!

As you (assuming anyone is reading this) can see, I've decided to rewrite this story, mostly for de-sueifying purposes and more character development. Wish me luck!

Ack, names... Giving all the characters full names? Not fun. Noah's is hilarious though (it's also Hindi for 'electrical').

Foreshadowing and such abound in this chapter, so look carefully! (Or not)

Sorry for the lack of stuff on Owen, but I find him hard to write as a rounded character. Maybe he'll actually gain a personality over the course of the story? {shrugs}


	2. Chapter 1: to be rewritten

Me: I do not own the Total Drama's. All I officiously own is Annie.  
Note: I'm a fan of Total Duncan Island, written by .Sun., so there may be several, or maybe a lot, of instances where things happening in my story are similar, or almost exactly the same, as several things in that story. Also, if Duncan is one of your borderline favorite characters, or if he is your favorite, I highly recommend that story. Same goes for DuncanxCourntney fans. I may also include references to Total Drama Academy: Year One written by Lord Akiyama. Again, I highly recommend it.

Chapter 2: Not So Happy Campers part 1

(Intro)  
"Yo. We're comin' at you live from Camp Wawanakwa. Somewhere in Muskoca, Ontario. I'm your host, Chris McClain. Dropping season one of the hottest new reality show on television, right now! Here's the deal: Twenty-three campers have signed up to spend eight weeks right here at this crummy old summer camp. They'll compete in challenges against each other, then have to face the judgment of their fellow campers. Every three days, one team will either win a reward or watch one of their team members walk down the Dock of Shame, take a ride on the Loser Boat, haha, and leave Total Drama Island, for good." The screen changes, and Chris is now standing in a campfire pit.  
"Their fate will be decided here, at the Dramatic Campfire Ceremonies, where each week, all but one camper will receive, a marshmallow. In the end, only one will be left standing and will be rewarded with cheesy tabloid fame and, a small fortune, which, let's face it, they'll probably blow in a week. To survive, they'll have to battle, black flies, grizzly bears, disgusting camp food, and, each other. Every moment will be caught on one of the hundreds of cameras situated all over the camp."  
"Who will crumple under the pressure? Find here, right now, on Total. Drama. Island."

…Theme song…  
(the only difference is Annie hanging upside-down from a tree behind DJ)

Annie's POV

Fully clad in my disguise, I stepped off my boat and on to a very old looking dock. All I had with me was my Palkia-brand backpack and it's contents. Hey, it could fit an apartment building in it (which is also why it had been nicknamed the Hamerspace Backpack), so it's all I needed.  
"Annie, welcome." said the man that I thought was in charge. Same guy I threatened, I might add. I had long since found out his name was Chris McClean. I mean McClain. I think. He has a weird last name, let's leave it at that. I just walked past him. Some wanna-be, mousey girl ran up to me.  
"Hi! I'm Beth!" she said. I just ignored her, and she seemed relatively taken aback by that. I just turned to watch the rest of the competition come. I looked around, this certainly wasn't what was on the form, but I preferred nature, so this was a happy surprise.  
"DJ!" announced Host-Dude.  
"Yo, Chris McClain! How's it going?" said the big guy, high-fiving Host-Dude. So it was McClain. "Hey, you sure you got the right place here? Where's the hot tub at?" he asked, I assume I was the only one who found this better, of course, the millions of obvious safety no-no's were a bit of a deterrent.  
"Yo dog, this is it!" said Host-Dude, "Camp Wawanakwa!" The big guy just picked up his bags and walked towards me and Beth.  
"Hmm, looked a lot different on the application form." No duh.  
"Hey Gwen." I heard Host-Dude say, and saw a clearly Goth girl with a couple of suitcases.  
"You mean we're staying here?" she asked, either annoyance or disappointment in her voice.  
"No, you're staying here." said Host-Dude, "My crib is an air-stream with A.C.," he pointed behind him, "that-a-way."  
"I did not sign up for this." said Gwen, annoyed.  
"Actually, you did." he said, pulling out a contract. Out of nowhere I might add. Gwen jerked it out of his hands, ripped it in half, and dropped it in the water, with a smirk.  
"The great thing about lawyers is," Host-Dude smirked, and then pulled another contract out of nowhere, "they make lots of copies."  
Goth girl didn't seem very fazed, and simply picked up her bags. "I am not staying here." If it weren't for the fact that she was a Pureblood- no don't even think it Annie. There's no way we could be friends.  
"Cool," said Host-Dude, or should I say taunted Host-Dude, "I hope you can swim though, because your ride, just left." True, her boat left a couple seconds ago.  
"Jerk."  
There was a blast of music coming from the next boat, along with a guy dancing, somewhat stupidly, out of the top of the boat. Wait, he was wearing… pink?  
"Chris McClain! Sup man? An honor to meet you man!"  
"The Geoff-ster!" said Host-Dude, "Welcome to the island man!"  
"Thanks man."  
"They say man one more time, I'm gonna puke."  
I withheld a chuckle, she had a point. Pink and Host-Dude high-fived, Pink walked towards us, and Host-Dude introduced our next competitor. No, no. She's not back, she can't be back! The blonde hair, blue eyes, all around good looks, it's her!  
"Everybody, this is Lindsay." Oh. It's not my dead sister, Kathline? Good. And I could have sworn I'd heard music. "Not too shabby." Host-Dude said towards the camera. And points for creepiness factor, 27!  
"Hiii, okay, you look so familiar."  
"I'm Chris McClain." Host-Dude stated proudly. Blonde just looked lost. "The host." Clearly still not ringing any bells. "Of the show."  
"Oooh, that's were I know you from!" Lindsay said. Uh…  
"Uh…" Oi! "Yeah."  
Another girl came, and she just oozed Pureblood. Her sunglasses shined once before she took it off and then, evaluated us. Creep.  
"Heather." Host-Dude simply said. Beth ran up to her, apparently going to try again.  
"Hi! Looks like we're your new friends!" Ugh, SPITTING! "For the next eight weeks!" Sunglasses creep just recoiled in horror. Suddenly a loud blare of rock music shocked everyone, and I saw someone who looked fricken' AWESOME on a boat with a menacing look on his face. I like this guy already. He had a Mohawk, piercings, the whole enchilada. He tossed his duffle bag on the ground, then jumped next to it. He then stood up and sneered at us.  
"Duncan, dude."  
"I don't like… surprises." he said, holding up a fist. Oh Articuno, thank you for sending me someone good to spend a summer with!  
"Yeah, your parole officer warned me about that man. He also told me to give him a holler anytime and have you returned to juvie." Duncan just sniffed.  
"Okay then." Juvie? I like this guy even more. I don't even care he's Pureblood, he's awesome! He's like, an Anti-Pureblood Pureblood! He walked by sunglasses. "Meet you by the campfire gorgeous."  
"Drop dead you skeeze." Ouch. Duncan dropped his bag by Blonde, and Sunglasses stalked past all of us. "I'm calling my parents, you can not make me stay here." Host-Dude responded by pulling out another huge contract, when we heard honking, wow, those boats have horns? The next boat was dragging the next competitor, who looked like he was trying to water ski, trying being the key word.  
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Tyler!" Then he, predictably, wiped out. In a very cartoon-ish way, landing in the pile of suitcases and sending somebody's suitcase into the water, splashing Sunglasses.  
"Ugh, my shoes!"  
"Wicked wipeout man!" Host-Dude called to Wipeout, who then stuck a thumbs up from inside the pile. Pink and Big Guy gave thumbs up to Gwen-no, Goth, who just looked… I don't know… annoyed? Host-Dude just chuckled/giggled to himself, but was interrupted by a loud sigh that came from someone who looked almost exactly, if not exactly, like Napoleon Dynamite. "Welcome to camp Harold." Napoleon simply looked around, oh man, he brought a electric keyboard for Mew's sake!  
"What's he looking at?" Mouse wondered aloud.  
"So you mean this show is at a crappy summer camp and not on some big stage or something?" Napoleon asked.  
"You got it." Host-Dude said. There was a very short pause.  
"Yes!" Holy crud, what? "That is so much more favorable to my skills!" Wow, I actually was not the only one happy about this, what the heck! Host-Dude looked creeped out for a second. Pink moved which meant Napoleon was standing right next to me, unfortunately. I just didn't like him. What am I thinking, I hate all Purebloods!  
"Contestant number nine," Uh, hello, can't you count, he's number eleven! "is Trent." Oh Ho-Oh, first an electric keyboard, now a guitar? And I thought only wanabies brought guitars to camp unless they were counselors or something!  
"Hey good to meet you man, saw you on that figure skating show," Wait, what? Figure skating? "nice work." Guitar finished, and fist-bumped Host-dude.  
"Hey, thanks man," Host-Dude said, "I knew I rocked that show!"  
"I saw that!" Mouse said "One of the guys dropped his partner on her head," just incase we didn't know what that was, she pointed to her own, and how much are you willing to bet that was Host-Dude? "so they got immunity that week." Of course.  
"Lucky," Napoleon said, "I hope I get dropped on my head."  
"Me too!" Blonde said. Eh, it could only do them good.  
"So, this is it?" Guitar asked, not to peeved sounding, but still a little ticked off. Napoleon, of course started picking his nose, RIGHT NEXT TO ME, and I resisted the urge to kick the back of his knee so hard he'd never walk strait again. "All righty, then…" Guitar trailed off, and stood next to Gwen, allowing me to step back away from Napoleon. And, was I mistaken? I had to be. No WAY Purebloods could have pure feelings, they were all just- nasty! And mean! And selfish! But then why did Guitar seem to take an interest in Goth? If he was trying to be popular, wouldn't that just destroy his progress? Could it be… not all Purebloods were as bad as the one's I had encountered all my life? Not to mention the fact that Goth seemed to like him back…  
Erm, anyway, the next girl was another blonde, carrying a surfboard. What do you know, I didn't expect to see another surfer.  
"Hey, what's up?" Crud, that's just how he would greet me, although he'd simply say "'Sup?"  
"Alright! Our surfer chick," I think we got that much Host-Dude, thanks, "Bridgette, is here." Duncan sniffed.  
"Nice board, this ain't Malibu honey." He said, teasing her, maybe?  
"I thought we were going to be on a beach." Malibu replied.  
"We are!" Host-Dude announced. I glanced at the shore, it was sandy, but otherwise, unusable. I noticed a wave came and picked up a seagull with one of those plastic things around it's neck. It looked dead. Malibu saw this too, or at least the condition the beach was in, and sighed.  
"Great."  
"All right, that makes-" before Host-Dude could continue, Malibu nailed him in the head with her surfboard, I had a hard time not chuckling, even if it was unintentional. "Ow, darn it! That hurts!"  
Malibu walked over to us, "Hey guys." She was apparently completely unaware she'd nailed Host-Dude with her board.  
"Hey…" Pink said, wow, this must be apocalypse day, three infatuations? Pink moved so he was completely alone. "I'm Geoff."  
"What's up?" Malibu asked, turning towards him, nearly whacking Duncan, Napoleon, and Guitar, the latter of whom had to take a step back to avoid being hit.  
"Dang!" Napoleon said, annoyed, "watch the board, man!"  
"Hi!" Crud, THINK PEOPLE, if that's possible, "I'm Beth."  
"Hey." Malibu said, repeating the exact same action, predictably, and nearly nailing Guitar, Napoleon and Duncan, again.  
"Okay, we've all met surfer girl," Sunglasses said, ringing out her hair, "Can we get on with the show please?"  
"Someone missed their double cappuccino macchiato this morning." Duncan teased.  
"Get bent." The next boat seemed to come from nowhere and dropped off a guy who looked, somewhat emotionless, actually.  
"Our, next camper is Noah." Host-Dude said, holding his head from the bump Malibu gave him.  
"You got my memo about my life threatening allergies?" he asked.  
"I'm sure someone did." Host-Dude replied, the jerk.  
"Good," the Cynic said, misinterpreting, "is this where we're staying?"  
"No, it's your mothers house," Duncan said, almost crackling his knuckles, "and we're throwing a party."  
"Cute. Nice piercings original, do them yourself?" Cynic asked.  
"Yeah, you want one?" Duncan threatened, pulling out a needle and grabbing Cynic's lip. The latter just scoffed.  
"Uh, no thanks, can I have my lip back please?" Duncan simply let go. "Thanks."  
I heard the next boats motor, and saw a somewhat short girl with a ponytail and two relatively large bags with leopard-patterned designs.  
"What's up yall, LeShanwna's in the house!" I heard Napoleon gasp. The new girl strode on the dock with confidence, but thankfully, not needs-an-ego-check confidence. "Yo baby, hey how you doin'?" This girl was loud. "How's it goin'?" She high-fived Host-Dude, then addressed us, "Feel free to quit now and save yourselves the trouble 'cause, I came to win." That reminded me, I wasn't here for some stupid competition, I was here to make friends, now that my other friends had… "Oh, what's up my brother?" Loud said, snapping me out of my trance, then high-fiving Big Guy, "give me some sugar baby!" Napoleon then popped in right next to LeShawna.  
"I've never seen a girl like you in real life before." he said, somewhat stupidly. He really needs to learn when not to speak. Let alone comment.  
"Excuse me?"  
"Your real big, and-" Okay dude, stop insulting the sister who looks like she could smack you into next week, insulting her weight, and is he about to be racist too? "-loud." Oh, I was thinking that earlier, and it's not exactly an insult…  
"What did you say to me?" Okay, maybe she took it as one, "Oh no you didn't! You have not seen anything yet! I'll show you big, baby!" Big Guy and Malibu ran and restrained her, as Napoleon did such as weak imitation of what I'm assuming was supposed to be Kung Fu it can only be thought of as an insult to martial arts everywhere. "Oh yeah, you want so of this? Well come on then!"  
"Alright campers, settle down." Host-Dude said, taking charge. After Big Guy and Malibu thought it was safe, they let Loud go. She adjusted her shirt and glared at Napoleon, who gave a weak smile. The next two girls arrived at the same time, and wore identical clothes, and had identical hairstyles… oh Raikou…  
"Ladies, Sadie, Katie, welcome to your new home for eight weeks." Host-Dude said, motioning at the camp. Even their names are almost identical, oh Ho-Oh…  
"Oh my gosh," The tan Wonder Twin said, "Sadie look," so that one was Katie, "it's a summer camp!"  
"Okay, I've always wanted to go to summer camp, eee!" Oh Lugia! Host-Dude seemed as creeped out as I was, maybe more so. The next boat immediately dropped off another dude with brown hair and a toupee.  
"Ezekiel, what's up man?" the dude in question actually looked up, and pointed.  
"I think I see a bird." Guitar chuckled a bit, and I couldn't blame him.  
"Okay, look dude. I know you don't get out much. Been home schooled your whole life, raised by freaky prairie people, just don't say much and try not to get kicked off too early. Okay?"  
"Yes sir." Goth scoffed a bit.  
"That's just… wow." The next person was a guy who looked a bit on the scrawny side.  
"Cody, the Codster, the Codmister!" Host-Dude said, doing the double gun pointing thing that I don't remember the name of.  
"Dude, psyched to be here man-" Don't think of him, don't think of him, don't think of him- "I see the ladies have already arrived, alright." Flirtmister strut passed Malibu, Blonde and Loud, and was about to say something to the last one, but instead she just put her pointer finger over his lips.  
"Save it short stuff." she said, relatively kind- ack! No! Stop thinking that! Pureboods are mean, nasty, cruel, insensitive-  
As if to emphasis my point, the next girl was incredibly menacing to quite possibly everyone one but me. Hey, if you can take down something thats 270 pound of pure muscle, with an extra eight pounds for bones, and eight extra pounds for brains that has four arms and it can send most targets clear across the horizon with one punch, you aren't intimidated easily.  
"Eva. Nice, glad you could make it." She walked over to us silently, but with a menacing glare. Flistmister put up his hand as some form of greeting, but she simply dropped her bag on his foot. He began hoping on one foot, "Ow! What's in there, dumbbells?" she arched an eyebrow, or, half of her unibrow, then lowered it.  
"Yes."  
"She's all yours man." Duncan said to Big Guy, then there was a thump on the dock. Before I could look back, I heard an enthusiastic-  
"WHOO HOO!" Before us stood a fat bag of unaltered joy, which was such a switch from my normal view of Purebloods I had to aura scan him to make sure he was human. "Chris! What's happenin'!" He laughed, "This is awesome! WHOO HOO!"  
"Owen! Welcome!" Chris yelled back. Joy Ball then scooped Host-Dude up into a bone-crushing (or so it sounded) hug.  
"Awesome to be here man. Yeah! Man, this is just so…" he stopped, not sure of what to say. Epic?  
"Awesome?" Goth suggested.  
"Yes! Awesome! WHOOO! Are you gonna be on my team?" Joy Ball asked Goth.  
"Oh I sure hope so." she said unenthusiastically, twirling her finger in the mocking 'sarcastic whoo-go-crazy' gesture.  
"WHOOWHOOWHOOWHOOWHOOWHOOOO!"  
"You about finished?" Host-Dude asked, most likely having gone partially deaf in one ear. Joy Ball put him down.  
"Sorry dude. I'm just so psyched!"  
"Cool. And here comes Courtney." I didn't like the looks of this one any more then Napoleon or Sunglasses, but, obviously, in a different way. She seemed too, proper. Like she wasn't being herself.  
"Thank you." She said to Host-Dude, as he helped her down. "Hi, you must be the other contestants. It's really nice to meet you all." Okay, that settles it, no one greets anybody like that unless they're in a business meeting. I predict I'm not going to get along with her at all. Unfortunately, Joy Ball didn't seem to sense her fakeness, and grabbed and started shaking her hand.  
"How's it goin'? I'm Owen!"  
"Nice to meet you Ow-ohhhh, wow…" she trailed off, staring at the next competitor. I swear, I heard more music. All the girls in the area (except for me) smiled with loving eyes, and Owen was (terrifyingly enough) practically drooling over him. I noticed Cynic and Guitar smirking and was a bit creeped out by that as well. He smiled, and Skinny-Wonder-twin got a huge grin, Dumbbells looked like she had just been hit with an Attract attack, and Chubby-Wonder-Twin swooned. I don't get it- why? It's not like he was that good-looking. Heck, he was just lukewarm/somewhat cold to me. And, I didn't like him, either.  
"This," Host-Dude said, holding out his arms to showcase him or something, "is Justin. Welcome to Total Drama Island." he fist-bumped Pretty-boy.  
"Thanks Chris, this is great."  
"Just so you know, we picked you based entirely on your looks." …I really, really don't get it. But that figures.  
"I can deal with that." Pretty-Boy said with a shrug, and I got a really nasty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Joy Ball ran a couple of feet and pointed.  
"I like your pants." He said, apparently unaware of how awkward that sounded.  
"Thanks man."  
"'Cause they look like they're all, worn out." he chuckled, "Did you buy them like that?"  
"Uh, no. Just, had them for a while."  
"Oh, cool." he must have realized how wrong he sounded, because he turned away and smacked himself. "Stupid!"  
"Hey, everyone!" Host-Dude said, snapping the girls out of their trances and brining our attention to what was probably the last boat, "Izzy." He didn't sound too thrilled, not unlike when I showed up.  
"Hi Chris! Hi! Hi-whoa!" she yelled as she tripped off the front of the boat and smashed her chin into the dock, before falling in the water.  
"Ooooooh, that was bad." Wipeout said, before laughing. Like he could talk.  
"Guys! She could be seriously hurt!" Prep said, semi-scolding us, and ran over to help the energetic girl out of the water. Said girl dried off by shaking the water off her body, not unlike how I do it sometimes.  
"That felt, so… Good!" Say what? "Except for hitting my chin-" oh, I guess a dip must have felt nice, "This is summer camp? That is so cool! Do you have paper mache here?" None of us have been here before. "Are we having lunch soon?"  
"That, is a good call!" Joy Ball yelled, pointing at her.  
"First things first-" Host-Dude said, Psycho just nodded, "We need a group photo for the promos. Everyone, on the end of the dock!" he told us, motioning for us to come over. We all walked over and got into position for Host-Dude to take the picture, and he hopped onto Psyco's boat. I knelt down in front/in between Dumbbells and Pretty-Boy. "Okay. One, two, three-oops." That didn't sound good. "Okay, forgot the lens cap." I sighed internally, Host-Dude just clicked a button. "Okay, hold that pose. One, tw- oh, no wait." Uh oh, "Cards full." I sighed internally again, then could have sworn I'd heard creaking. That couldn't be good. "Hang on."  
"Come on man," Loud said, "my face is startin to freeze." I couldn't help but smile at my fortune, no one could see my face, so I was free to do whatever I wanted with it. Like contort it and, well, not stick my tongue out, but I could still mess it up and no one would see.  
"Got it!" Host-Dude told us, finally. "Okay. Everyone say, 'Wawanakwa!'"  
Everybody but me said in several different ways: "Wawanakwa!" Then creaking was incredibly loud and the dock collapsed, I stayed underwater. No way was Host-Dude getting photo graphic evidence I fell for that. When I surfaced, assuming it was safe, I saw everyone going to dry off, and raced to catch up. I simply used my special ability to force all the water off myself, I wasn't in the mood to use a towel or shake anything off. I saw everybody at a campfire pit, and decided to join them. Host-Dude came decided to join us (everyone else had been drying off with towels) and began to speak to us.  
"This, is Camp Wawanakwa. Your home for the next eight weeks. The campers sitting around you will be your cabin mates, your competition, and maybe even your friends, ya dig?" I noticed Duncan immediately denied that possibility with Napoleon. I, on the other hand, had that in mind as a goal, as horrible as it might be. "The camper that manages to stay on Total Drama Island the longest, without getting voted off will win, one hundred thousand dollars!" Quite personally, I couldn't care less about the money. I've lived my entire life without much more then a penny to my name. Of course, to all the Purebloods, it must have sounded like they'd found the G.S. Grail.  
"S'cuse me," Duncan said, walking to the front, "What would the sleeping arrangements be? 'Cause I'd like to request a bunk under her." he jabbed his fingers in the direction of Sunglasses, who looked horrified.  
"They're not co-ed are they?" she asked, somewhat worried.  
"No. Girls get one side of each cabin, and dudes get the other." Host-Dude told us. Blonde put up her hand.  
"Excuse me, Kyle? Can I have a cabin with a lake view since I'm the prettiest?" She was just like… her. She always thought she was entitled to everything, that she was some vision of beauty to be known world-wide, to be admired, to be envied by girls everywhere-  
"Okay, you are," Host-Dude said, snapping me out of my thoughts, "but that's not really how it works here. And, it's Chris."  
"I have to live with Sadie," Skinny-Wonder-Twin announced, "Or, I'll die."  
"And I'll break out in hives." Chubby-Wonder-Twin told us, "It's true." Right…  
"This cannot be happening." I heard Goth mutter, I looked over to see Joy Ball scoop her and Wipeout into a sort of hug.  
"Aw come on guys! It'll be fun! It's like a big sleepover!"  
"At least you don't have to sleep next to him." I heard Wipeout whisper, and followed their eyes to Duncan, who was busy giving a deer a noogy (A/N or however it's spelt) for whatever reason. I had to admit, that was somewhat intimidating.  
"Here's the deal." Host-Dude started. "We're gonna spilt you into two teams, if I call your name out," he pointed, somewhere, "go stand over there. Gwen." Goth looked up, "Trent." Guitar's head perked a little, to show he'd heard. "Heather." Sunglasses arched an eyebrow. "Cody. Lindsay." Flirtmister didn't respond until Blonde's name was called, then he looked over at Blonde, who looked surprised. "Beth." Mouse made no reaction. "Katie." I couldn't see any reaction, if there was one, other then looking up. "Owen." Joy Ball just blinked happily. "LeShawna." Loud stood up. "Justin." Another arched eyebrow. "and… Noah." I didn't see Cynic's reaction, because I was too busy noticing that Skinny-Wonder-Twin seemed to pale for a minute. "From this moment on," he held up a rolled up green, flag, I guess? "you are officially known as," he tossed the flag and Joy Ball caught it, unrolling it to reveal a green gopher in a fighting position. "the Screaming Gophers!"  
"Yeah, I'm a Gopher! Woo!" Joy Ball yelled, happily.  
"Wait, what about Sadie?" Skinny-Wonder-Twin thought aloud, clearly concerned.  
"The rest of you over here." Host-Dude told us, then unnecessarily called out our names. "Geoff. Bridgette." Pink smiled at Malibu. "Annie." I made no reaction. "D.J." Big Guy also had no reaction. "Tyler. Sadie. Izzy. Courtney. Ezekiel." Home-School walked over to Prep, who looked at him. "Duncan." Duncan looked up from the deer he was still giving a noogy to. "Eva." Weights, who was working with some by the way, acted as though she couldn't hear him. "And… Harold." Crud, I was on Napoleon AND Prep's team. Oh well, at least I didn't have Sunglasses and Pretty-Boy too. And I had Duncan, and Psyco looked like she might be fun, for a Pureblood. "Move, move, move, move!" he told us, and we walked over to where he had gestured.  
"But Katie's a Gopher! I have to be a Gopher!" I heard Chubby-Wonder-Twin cry behind me.  
"Sadie is it?" I saw Prep talking to her, and I still had the weird feeling she wasn't acting like herself, "C'mon, it'll be okay."  
Turn's out, Chubby-Wonder-Twin wasn't in the mood to be talked to. "This is so unfair! I miss you Katie!"  
"Oh, I miss you too!" …Are the teams living on different islands or something?  
"You guys will officially be known as," Host-Dude repeated the flag thing with us, and Napoleon caught the red flag, then unrolled it revealing an angry looking fish. Great. "the Killer Bass."  
"It's awesome." I heard Napoleon whisper. "It's like, amazing."  
"All right campers, you and your team will be on camera in all public areas during this competition."  
He later showed us a crummy looking out house, and explained that it was a confession cam, which we could use at any time to say something we wanted to say to the audience or any kicked off campers, but not to our fellow competitors.  
Confession Cam (A/N: The confession cam is a break from whomever's POV is being used at the time (usually Annie) as most people are unaware of others confessions, with a few exceptions. The POV goes right back to the previous one afterwards)  
Chris: You will also be able to share your innermost thoughts on tape with video diaries anytime you want. Let the audience at home know what you're really thinking, or, just get something off your chest.  
Gwen: Um… okay. So far this sucks.  
Lindsay: (facing the toilet, not the camera) I don't get it, where's the camera guy?  
Goose: (Applying lipstick until it notices the camera) Honk?  
Owen: Hey everyone, check this out. I have something very important to say. (farts then laughs)  
Confession cam end  
"All right, any questions? Cool." He said, before any of us had the chance to say anything, "Let's find your cabins!" After a bit of walking, we finally reached two run-down looking cabins, with a tree between them. "Gophers, you're in the east cabin," he said, gesturing to the right cabin. Which meant we- "Bass, you're in the west."  
The other Bass and the Gophers headed toward their respective cabins, but I just headed towards the tree in the middle. I threw my backpack at an angle in which it would catch the branch and stay there, but not until it was a few feet on, then jumped onto the same branch. I noticed Duncan had seen this and was giving me a 'uh, what?' kind of look. I just shrugged and dug out an orange, then held it up trying to say 'would you like one?' He seemed to get the message, but he simply waved his hand in a way of saying 'no thanks.' Suddenly, I noticed Flirtmister get thrown out of the Gopher's cabin, landing at Guitar's feet, head somewhat buried in the ground (a hill of pushed-up grass had collected in front of him). He sat up, grass in his mouth. I smirked.  
"Where are the outlets? I have to plug in my striating iron." I heard, who else, but Blonde ask.  
"There are some in the communal bathrooms, just across the way." Host-Dude told her.  
"Communal bathrooms? But, I'm not catholic!" Oy, vey…  
"Not, Communion, communal."  
"It means we shower together." Goth told her, then voiced what I was thinking. "Idiot."  
There was a pause then Blonde cried "Oh no, come on!"  
I heard Joy Ball behind me, "I'm glad we're in our own cabin with just guys, you know what I mean?" I turned a little as he chuckled, and noticed Cynic going into the cabin, fast. Joy Ball realized his mistake immediately. "I mean, no! I didn't mean it like that! I love chicks!" he chuckled, "I just don't want to sleep near them. Uh, guh, I mean-!" he said, going back into the guy's side of the Gopher's cabin.  
"Excuse me, Chris?" I heard Pink say. "Is there a chaperone of any kind in this facility?" eh? Who talks like that? 'This facility'? What?  
"You're all sixteen years old." Host-Dude said. "As old as a counselor-in-training in a regular summer camp. So, other then myself, you'll be unsupervised. You've got a half an hour to unpack and meet me back at the main loge! Starting, now!"  
"Nice!" Almost immediately afterwards, I heard a loud scream from the girl's side of the Gopher cabin, and I wasn't the only one. In a few seconds (and the screamer was still screaming) Me, Duncan, Loud, Goth, Sunglasses, Wipeout, Napoleon, and Big Guy had all gathered around the door. It was Lindsay.  
"Oh, man that white girl can scream." Loud said for all of us. The girl in question (Blonde, not Loud) was standing on a stool, looking down, terrified at… a cockroach. What a relief, I thought it was one of his goons!  
"What is it? Kill it! Kill it!" 'It' began to scuttle around, and Big Guy gasped, and then screamed and jumped onto a nearby bed, destroying it. What? He hadn't struck me as a chicken type.  
"That, was my bed." I heard Goth say. A large amount of screaming followed, Napoleon tried to stop on it, Sunglasses and Mouse were terrified of it to the point were they climbed up on a top bunk. For all the good that would do, considering cockroaches can climb walls. I didn't bother doing anything, this was fun to watch. The only girl actually doing something other then hiding (Blonde had jumped onto and was now hiding on top of Big Guy) was Loud, who was trying to stomp on it. Finally it scuttled up to Duncan, who had an ax from nowhere. He sliced it in half.  
"Well that's one way to kill a cockroach." I heard Gwen say, and nodded at her, before remembering I was supposed to hate all Purebloods, including Goth. Then I noticed Wipeout had been hiding behind her the entire time, and withheld a laugh.  
"Awesome." I heard Napoleon say in awe.  
Wipeout decided to flirt (I guess) with Blonde and told her; "If you ever see one of those again, just let me know, okay? 'Cause," he sniffed, "y'know, I can do that too." Says the guy who was hiding behind Goth the entire time. Blonde, however, fell for it, and seemed somewhat infatuated. Okay, it's official. Not only can this girl be barley like my sister, it IS fricken' apocalypse day! Duncan scoffed behind me.  
"They always go for the jocks."

Half an hour was over quickly, then we all realized something. Chris didn't show us where the main loge was. Luckily Home-School recognized it and pointed it out. After we found it, we lined up inside and I saw, to my horror, the same guy I flipped before. I decided then and there, I'm making my own food. I'm not letting this dude poison me. Not a chance.  
"Listen up!" he yelled, most likely recognizing me, "I serve it three times a day, and you will eat it, three times a day! Grab your tray. Get your food. And sit your butts down NOW!"  
"Excuse me," Mouse began, obviously not seeing the danger signs, "But will we be getting all the major food groups?"  
"Yeah," Napoleon said, stupidly adding fuel to the fire, "'Cause I get hypoglasimic real bad, if I don't get enough sugar."  
"You'll get a lot of-SHUT THE HECK UP!"  
"Have a cow." Joy Ball whispered to Cynic. Ugh, would these people ever learn? Oh duh, of course not, they're PUREBLOODS!  
"What was that?" Joy Ball immediately looked scared. Cynic didn't look to happy either. "Come closer fat boy. I didn't hear you." This guy clearly isn't happy to be here. My presence can't be helping.  
"Uh, I didn't really say anything important." Joy Ball said, trying to keep this guys wrath off of him, and picked up what I would like to call food.  
"I'm sure you didn't!" Cynic was just looking at his food, somewhat repulsed. "You! Scrawny kid!" Cynic, in other words. "Gimmie your plate." he ordered, holding up another scoop of the, stuff. Cynic knew better then to ignore him, and put his tray back on the counter, where the chef tried to put another scoop of the stuff on his food. Disgustingly, it climbed back onto the scooper, and the guy had to redouble his efforts to get it on. Cynic simply walked over to the far table, which was apparently the Gopher table. I looked back to see Loud and I may have had the same idea, she was trying to make conversation with Weights.  
"Hey, what's up girl?" Weights just turned around and, I'm assuming, glared. "Oh, it's gonna be like that is it?"  
"NEXT!" the chef yelled.  
I hoped that that wouldn't interfere with my goal of making friends here. Why was I even bothering, though? I hate Purebloods, plain and simple. I mean, I instantly liked Duncan, but that was about it. But hey, that was something, right? Blonde decided to interrupt my thoughts.  
"Excuse me, my nutritionist says I shouldn't eat any white sugar, white flower or, like, dairy." I heard knuckles cracking and didn't bother to look back. I heard Goth say "I don't think that's going to be a problem." I heard a squishing sound, and was a bit disgusted, considering it was probably the food.  
"Cool." Blonde said, not noticing what I heard, and walked back to the table with her food.  
"Okay, I hate to be predictable and complain on the first day, but I think mine just moved." I heard a loud whack that sounded a bit like a meat tenderizer. "Right! Okay then!" I saw her walk back, with some of the goop dripping off her, and sat down at the Bass table, foodless.  
"Hey, you! Scarf Girl!" I heard him yell at me, I ignored him. "My food not good enough?" In all honesty, I would rather eat tree bark. I just turned around, still stitting at the table. "You got a problem with my cookin'?" I just turned back around, to face my table. Like I thought earlier. Making my own food, I grow food very well. Not to mention the stash of like, four hundred thousand oranges in my backpack. I love oranges. I heard him let out an annoyed, no not annoyed, more like infuriated, growl and Chris walked in, (Homeschool had puked on him when he saw the food, and he had to get cleaned up). "Welcome to the main loge." he said. No thanks to him.  
"Yo, my man, can we order a pizza?" Pink asked, finally pushing the chef over the edge. A butchers knife nearly took his hat, and everything attached off, and landed wedged in the wall next to Chris. "Whoa! It's cool G!" G standing for Guy, I assume? "Brown slop is cool!" he chuckled nervously. "Right guys?" Isn't the slop red? There were mixed reactions. Some people smiled, smiled and nodded, some looked shocked, a couple others hid under their table. As for me, I wasn't that scared. I could take him.  
And he knew it.  
Chris decided to intervene. "Your first challenge begins," he turned and held up a finger, "In one hour."  
"What'd you think they'll make us do?" Skinny-Wonder-Twin, who was sitting at our table for some reason, asked.  
"It's our first challenge, how hard can it be?" Big Guy assured her. My jaw dropped, I was totally shocked and struggled to repress a gasp. He must have noticed, because he asked, "What?" I thought everyone and I mean EVERYONE knew you never, and I mean EVER, say things like that. It only makes bad things ten times worse. I know.

Later, I was proved right. In nothing but our bathing suits, we were standing at the top of a huge cliff, (I was still had every inch covered) and looking down at the water far below.  
"Oh shit." 


	3. Chapter 2: to be rewritten

**Me: For those of you who are wondering (and haven't seen the show), I did add in Annie's tree, no tree is in between the cabins in the actual show. Also, I meant to update Wednesday! Gah, I'm late!  
**

Chapter 3: Not So Happy Campers part 2

"Okay, today's first challenge is three-fold." Host-Dude-oh to heck with the stupid nicknames! Chris told us, as though we had already been on the show for a week. "Your first task is to jump off this one thousand foot high cliff, into the lake." I looked over the side. It didn't look quite a thousand feet. Very high, yes. A thousand feet, no.  
"Piece of cake." Bridgette said, quite sure of herself.  
"If you look down, you will see two target areas." Chris continued, I saw two rings made of those floating plastic bead-like things. One ring was much, much larger then the other. "The wider area represents the part of the lake that we have stocked with psychotic," he paused to laugh, "man-eating sharks." He couldn't be telling the truth, this was fresh water. Unless they were Sharpedo, though it didn't look like it. Bull sharks, more likely. "Inside that area is a safe zone, that's, your target area. Which, we're pretty sure is shark free."  
"Excuuse me?" LeShawna asked.  
"For each member of your team that jumps and actually, survives," Definitely Pureblood. "there will be a crate of supplies waiting below. Inside each crate is supplies you'll need for the second part of your challenge: Building a hot tub! The team with the best one gets to have a wicked," he pointed at the camera, "hot tub party tonight. The losers, will be sending someone home." There was a short pause for us to think about that, to scare us I think. "Let's see… Killer Bass, you're up first." Yep, that figures.  
"Oh, wow." Bridgette said, looking over the edge and sounding a lot less sure now. "So, who wants to go first?" I was fine with going, personally, but I wanted to see how everyone else would jump. There was a pause and one thing became very clear- no one wanted to jump. I understand that, considering the fact that the surface tension would have made the water like a floor, except for the sinking in after it knocked you out. After a minute, Owen chuckled.  
"Hey, don't sweat it guys. I heard that these shows always make the interns do the stunt first to make sure it's survivable." I noticed Chris staring off into his own little world with a ominous smile on his face. I hadn't known this dude for three hours and I already know that's a bad sign.  
"So," Eva said, most likely getting irritated at how nobody was volunteering. "Who's up?"  
Without missing a beat, Duncan looked at Courtney and told her "Ladies first." I smirked.  
"Fine." Bridgette said, standing at the edge, "I'll go. It's no big deal. Just an insane cliff dive into a circle of angry sharks." she told us, before doing a perfect swan dive. I heard a splash that didn't meet my expectations of: Like hitting a floor, at all. Tyler, Eva and Geoff looked over (the latter for obvious reasons) and I heard Tyler shout, "She did it! Yeah! Yeah! I'm next!" He ran back away from the cliff, probably to get a running start. "Cowabunga!" He also did a good dive, but then I heard a loud clang and a yell of pain, and looked over to see he had hit a buoy. This goes without saying: ow. Geoff was next, yelling happily all the way down. Then Eva, who warned the previous jumpers she was coming down. Then Duncan, who looked as though he did this every day. DJ didn't look so confident, however.  
"Uh uh, no way man. I'm not jumpin." he said, recoiling from the edge of the cliff.  
"Scared of heights?" Chris asked him.  
"Yeah, ever since I was a kid."  
"That's okay big guy," Oi! That was my nickname for him before I decided to scrap them! "Unfortunately, that also makes you a chicken! So, you'll have to wear this-" he put a rubber chicken hat from nowhere on DJ, where is he getting these things? "for the rest of the day."  
"Aw man, for real?"  
"Bawk bawk bawk!" Chris mocked. "That means the chicken path down, is that-a-way." he said, pointing behind him at an escalator we really should have noticed and used. (It looked like the Purebloods were exhausted). "Next!" Ezekiel jumped, shouting 'Yeehaaaw!' on the way down, then I heard a crack and looked over the edge, and saw him spinning uncontrollably. I noticed a rock jetting out from the side of the cliff and guessed what happened. Harold was up next.  
"Yes!" he said, jumped, then did a split in mid-air. Unfortunately, he landed in the water that way and the water tension decided to finally become normal. Even the sharks were flinching, I did everything in my power not to laugh.  
"Ooh, hate to see that happen." Chris said, not at all concerned.  
"Excuse me, Chris. I have a medical condition." Courtney said, clearly put off by Harold's painful landing.  
"What condition?" I was surprised he cared.  
"A condition that prevents me from jumping off cliffs." Liar. At least come up with something.  
"You can chicken out if you want," Chris said, catching her obvious fakeness, "But it might end up costing your team the win. And then they'll hate you." I gave Courtney a don't-you-dare glare, but she didn't notice.  
"It's a calculated risk. I've seen the other team, and I don't think nine of them will jump."  
"Alright, here's your chicken hat." Chris said, putting the stupid looking hat on the annoying prep. Thanks Courtney, one chicken is fine, two is just crossing line.  
"So, let's tally up the results," Um, hello? Am I even here? "Hold on, that's eight jumpers and two chickens. We're missing one." THREE! HELLO? Oh, he is doing this solely to annoy me.  
"I'm not jumping without Katie!" Sadie said, ugh. I dislike it when two people share the same brain. Are close friends? Fine. Miss each other terribly when separated? As long as it's out of sight instead of three feet and for a length of time longer then half an hour. But when they basically share lungs or a brain or whatever; well, that's one way NOT to earn my respect.  
"We have to be on the same team Chris!"  
"PLEASE?" They both begged at him. "Please? Can we? Can we? Can we Chris? Can we? Can we? Can we?"  
"I'll switch places with her!" Izzy volunteered.  
"Alright, fine." Chris said, clearly as annoyed with them as I was. "You're both on the Killer Bass now. Izzy, you're on the Screaming Gophers." Izzy rolled her eyes with a shrug, clearly not caring.  
"Yes!" the wonder twins cried. I noticed one of the S.G.'s look disappointed for a second, before regaining his composure.  
"That means you're up girls!" Chris told them, and the wonder twins jumped off together.  
"We're coming Killer Bass!" As the only one left on my team, I knew I was up after them. I casually walked over to the edge and jumped in. Easy. Some boat picked me up afterwards and I resisted the urge to simply jump into it, but instead climbed into it. After I was back on shore, I saw someone jumping down, well falling. Then I heard the familiar screaming, I grinned evily. Heather. As soon as her head was out of the water, I heard her sneeze then say "LeShawna, you are so dead." I smiled, before I remember I was supposed to hate the guts of everyone here. I head said sister yell down.  
"At least I threw you into the safe zone, didn't I?" She paused to say something else to herself, before jumping in a similar style as me, though, she screamed when I didn't. She landed next to Heather and smiled. Next was Lindsay, who came flailing all the way down. Gwen, I'm not entirely sure how to describe her position. Cody, he looked like he was trying to fly. Izzy looked like she was freefalling, technically she was. Justin did a swan dive too, and to a combination of joy and horror, landed outside the safe zone. Joy because I'm exceedingly sadistic at times to people I really don't like (Example: Justin), and horror because he might die. The sharks came out of the water with jaws wide and then closed their mouths. I saw hearts appear in their eyes and they carried him back to shore. Of course, that figures.  
"I'm sorry!" I heard Beth call down.  
"She's not jumping." I heard Courtney say, with a smile. LeShawna and Cody mocked her by bawking, and I noticed Noah jumped.  
"That is like so lame, right?" Lindsay asked, about Beth's chickening out.  
"Fully lame." Trent was next, yelling 'Yeah!' on the way down, and landed in a victorious position.  
"Okay campers, there's only one person left." Chris said, and I wondered how we could hear him, before noticing the megaphone. "You guys need this jump for the win!" he turned to Owen and said something, then, needlessly, put the megaphone back on and told him, and all of us: "Okay, there's pressure!" Poor guy looked panicked. His team cheered him on, while Courtney just looked scared, as she should.  
Confessional:  
Owen: I was pretty darn nervous. See the thing is, I'm not that strong a swimmer.  
Geoff: I'm lookin' at this guy and thinking: 'There's no way he's gonna make it.'  
Gwen: I actually thought, 'If he jumps this, he's gonna die.'  
Confessional over  
I saw Owen walk away and I thought he wasn't jumping, Chris said something to him, mocking him possibly, when Owen ran back and jumped off.  
"Oooh, CRAP!" he yelled, then began screaming his head off. Noah and Trent, who were still in the water, realized just how bad their positions were, as Owen landed on top of them, causing a massive title wave. I barley kept my footing, until someone was knocked into me. After I got the water out of my eyes, I realized it was Noah, who had been forced to our side. In the water, Owen cheered for himself. "Yes! Yeah! Oh yeah! Who's the man?" Beth cheered for him.  
"Yes." LeShawna said, happily.  
"The winners!" Chris called down, probably the only one dry now. "The Screaming Gophers!" Wait, shouldn't it have been a tie since just as many people on both teams jumped, unless… ARGH! He counted how many didn't jump! Courtney is going to get it.  
"That was awesome dude." Trent said in the boat, which had flipped back over and was back in the water. "What's wrong?"  
"I uh, think I lost my bathing suit." Around me, people started 'ew'-ing and shuddering. I withheld a laugh. I couldn't picture it because I've never seen a dude naked before! HA!  
A little later, I had been left without a crate and Courtney 'mysteriously' got one instead. People were moving their crates in multiple ways. Eva (being Eva) was simply carrying her crate. DJ was flipping his. Most were just pushing. Duncan was kicking his, and I walked over to try and help him, and started pushing. He started pushing too.  
"Sorry, looked like you might need some help." He nearly fell over.  
"You can talk?" he asked, shocked.  
"Yeah, don't tell anyone." I said, quietly.  
"Why didn't you talk earlier?" he asked.  
"No need, besides I want to sound mute."  
"Why…?" he shook his head and didn't question any further. Eventually, we started talking/whispering about the other campers. I had already told him I had been determined to hate the guts of everyone here, but couldn't hate his. He smirked at that, and I quickly told him not to get the wrong idea. After a few minutes, I heard Courtney stop pushing and complain about getting a splinter. Eva stormed up to her.  
"Shut up and pick up your crate." I heard a thud, and looked back to see Courtney on the ground and realized that Eva must have picked up the crate then dropped it. "Chicken."  
"Hey!" Courtney said, quickly standing up, "I'm the only one with C.I.T. camping experience here. You need me." DJ and Eva looked at each other and so did Duncan and I. All of us wondering why that mattered, all things considered. After a few more minutes of walking, Tyler put his crate down and explained himself, saying he needed to go to the bathroom. Eva told him to hurry up and Katie and Sadie realized they had to go too and, thankfully, didn't go into the same part of the woods as Tyler.  
"Ow!" I heard Courtney yelp, "I think something just bit me." I ignored it, and continued to push (albeit more slowly) with Duncan. After a few minutes, I heard the other crates behind us start to move, and pushed at 'normal' pace. After a few MORE minutes I heard Sadie yell, "Okay, I HAVE to scratch!" Our not-so-friendly neighborhood host dude decided to show up at that moment and rub in our faces how behind we were.  
"You guys are way behind the other team. Like way behind." I glared pointedly at him, but of course, he couldn't see it. "What's the hold up?"  
"Their butts are itchy." Courtney told him, sounding ticked off. Duncan and I looked back and saw her eye had turned purple and was pulsing. Ew.  
"Gah!" Chris said, far more horrified then me. "Oh my boxers that's bad!"  
"Hey Duncan, want to see a special skill of mine?" he raised an eyebrow (sort of) and I snuck, unseen, to Chris's A.T.V., and started fiddling with it. It's a scientific fact that if I mess with a machine for more then fifteen seconds, it will explode. As soon as I was done, I snuck back to Duncan in time for Katie and Sadie to start screaming. "What's with them?" I asked.  
"Squatted over Poison Ivy." Duncan said with a laugh, and I chuckled, I probably half-way willed that. After a few seconds, Bridgette suggested to the Wonder Twins that they sit in the water to try and wash it off. Chris hopped back on his A.T.V. and, after lashing us severely with words drove off.  
"What was you messing with his wheels going to accomplish?" Duncan asked. I smirked, though he couldn't see it.  
"3... 2... 1-" BOOM! A tire from Chris' A.T.V. rolled past our team, and we all (not including myself, for obvious reasons) burst out laughing.

"Finally." Harold said, and with good reason. One things for sure, we definitely had the most interesting bringing-the-boxes-back-to-camp footage.  
"Hey, what's up guys?" Trent asked, holding some wood.  
"Hey, aren't you missing a couple of white girls?" LeShawna asked, popping out of her crate. We looked around for half a second.  
"They're… getting a drink." Courtney replied irritably.  
"Yeah," Harold joked softly to Ezekiel and unknowingly me, "if they drink with their butts." Ezekiel laughed.  
"That's funny." I gave him an odd look, for all the good that did.  
"Oh!" LeShawna cried out in alarm, most likely having caught sight of Courtney's eye, "What happened to your eye girl?"  
"Nothing." Courtney quickly reassured her, "Just an allergy."  
"I think it's getting worse." Ezekiel pointed out.  
"Shut up, we don't want them to know that!" Courtney whisper-yelled at Ezekiel, though her logic was a bit weird, why couldn't they know?  
"Open crates with teeth only, use whatever's in them, yada yada…" Chris said, walking up, still blasted from the effects of his A.T.V. blowing up. "I'm gonna take a shower…" after he left, the opposing team let out laughs they didn't dare do earlier, for fear of being eliminated anyway. Courtney, however, wasn't amused.  
"Our TEETH?"

It had taken a while to get some of the boxes open, especially considering Ezekiel wouldn't let me help. ("This is no job for a girl, eh.") I hope for his sake that he was just being chivalrous, or trying to anyway. And if he is sexist, then if he likes his teeth he won't say anything. I don't care about sexism, much anyway. All Evas considered, he'd learn. Fast. Eventually, they lost hope for some reason, so Geoff decided to give us a pep talk.  
"Dudes, it's not too late. We can do this!" Nobody seemed to listen, or care, and I heard Courtney 'ew' about something Ezekiel did, which Bridgette then commented on. Luckily, I was nowhere near him.  
"Okay, look guys." I heard Courtney say, and peered behind the boxes to see she had stood up. "We have a hot tub to complete, and we need a project manager. Since I've actually been a CIT before, I'm electing myself. Any objections?" Yes, I don't like you, and you've put us at a disadvantage when even I didn't.  
"Where do we begin, Cyclops?" Duncan asked.

So, I just sat on the sidelines, and watched our team's dysfunction commence. I noticed we didn't have nails. Why we, or they, considering I wasn't being allowed to help, didn't use the nails from the crates, I don't know. Infighting… tut tut, that won't get anything done. Eventually, our team had to use duck tape to hold it together and the tub looked, pitiful. Ah well, I wouldn't have made it look any better. Though I don't know what was worse, our hot tub (especially compared to the Gophers) or the fact that nobody thought I could help. I mean, I probably couldn't, but still. When Chris started to judge them, I knew we didn't have a snowball's chance in the Sahara. And when it fell apart, well, it was all over.  
"Well, I think we have a winner here." Chris said, and I knew exactly who he was talking about, "The Screaming Gophers!" said team began cheering, while most of my team looked downhearted. "Gophers! You're safe from elimination and, you get to rock this awesome hot tub for the rest of the summer! Bonus!" Beth even got to take her hat off! "Killer Bass, what can I say? Sucks to be you right now. I'll see your sorry butts at the bonfire tonight."  
"We won!" Lindsay cheered, "We all get to stay here for another three days!" Beth and Heather cheered, and I looked over to something that I wish I could burn out of my brain.  
Owen.  
Dancing.  
Naked.  
Ew! My eyes will never recover! I vaguely heard him cheering about how they won.  
Later, we were all sitting in the main lodge, eating (or not, in my case) the slop that was supposed to be food. Katie decided to break the silence.  
"So, uh… what do we do now?"  
"We have to figure out who we're gonna vote off." Courtney told her.  
"Well I think it should be Princess." Duncan said, jabbing his finger in Courtney's direction, then pointed at DJ, "Or the Brick House here."  
"What?" Courtney asked, shocked, "Why?"  
"Because, unless I'm mistaken, you two are the only one's here wearing chicken hats." Duncan pointed out. DJ looked at his hat sadly. "And if we ever have to life a truck, I like our odds with the big guy."  
"Y-You guys need me," Courtney persisted. "I'm the only one-"  
"We KNOW 'Who used to be a real C.I.T.'. So who would you pick?" Bridgette asked, annoyed as all of us. Courtney looked around.  
"What about," she pointed at Tyler, who was sitting next to Bridgette, "him!"  
"No!" a familiar voice yelled and everybody turned to stare at Lindsay, though why, I'm not sure. It's obvious she has a crush on him. She stammered about having no salt, before Duncan retaliated for him.  
"Hey Hey! At least he jumped off the cliff, Chicken Wing!"  
"Shut up!" Geoff decided to pop up and play peacemaker.  
"Okay, let's just chill out, this is getting' way too heavy."  
"Aah, I've had enough prison food for one day," Duncan said, getting up, "I'm gonna go have a nap."  
"You can't do that!" Courtney protested, "We haven't decided who's going yet!"  
"I just don't get why we lost, aey. They're the one's with six girls." What do you know, he is sexist after all! Congratulations, Ezekiel, you are going nowhere in life! Even Noah and Cody (Who were sitting at our table for some reason on either side of the Wonder Twins) were shocked. Eva and Bridgette (who were both severely peeved off) approached him.  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
"Yeah, Homeschool," Eva said, then slammed her fist onto the table, "enlighten us."  
Ezekiel didn't notice the danger signs, apparently, because he continued.  
"Well, guys are so much stronger and better at sports then girls are."  
Harold, Noah and Cody backed away from Katie and Sadie, who looked a bit like they were going to explode. Me? I'm waiting for the facts, first.  
"Oh, snap. You did not just say that!" Geoff said.  
"My dad-" His dad? Interesting… "told me to look out for the girls here, aey, and help 'em if they can't keep up." Two seconds after he said that, Eva grabbed and lifted him by the neck. Didn't they hear? His dad is his sexist influence, not his fault. His dad may pay, though.  
"Still think we need your help 'keeping up'?" Eva asked, surprisingly calm.  
"Uh, not really."  
"Okay, guys, let's give him a break." Geoff, ever the peacemaker, said, stepping in before Eva strangled the home-schooler, "I mean, at least he doesn't think guys are smarter then girls." he said, pointing the wrong thing out.  
"But, they are." Ezekiel said stupidly. Eva grabbed him and threw him across the room, out the window (shattering it, I might add).

Later, it was time to cast my vote, I went to the Confession Cam, where we were evidently placing our votes. I thought about everyone on our team, without letting my prejudice against Purebloods get in the way.  
Ezekiel: Homeschool sexist with no social skills. But he'd been influenced to be sexist, so he may easily learn how incorrect his views were as the competition drags on. Especially with Eva around. He also took the challenge for our team, and didn't exactly get away scoot free either.  
Eva: Girl who needs serious anger management. But she could probably show Ezekiel how girls are definitely not weaker. Both of us could probably bench-press him (though, I need to find out what that is first). She jumped, and even had the foresight to warn those below, in case she hit them (though I might just be looking into that too much). She seemed relatively defensive though, and I'm getting hints of a temper. But I want to arm wrestle her once before she goes, at least. Also, her athletic ability is nothing to laugh at.  
Katie: Only has half a brain, max. Which she shares with Sadie. As annoying as they both are, she seems slightly less annoying and dependent. A bit. And she jumped. She also didn't lose her temper after Ezekiel's comments, but it did look like she was going to explode.  
Sadie: I dislike her more then her other half of the brain. She's more dependent, but if I vote her or Katie off, the other one would become dead weight and cost us another win. Maybe as the competition goes on, they'll become less dependent, but as it stands, voting her off would be a horrible move strategically. There's also the fact that she didn't blow her top with Ezekiel, and jumped during the challenge too.  
Tyler: He's completely unathletic, though that might be a low blow if I were to mention it to him. Voting him off looks like it will mess with Lindsay, but as it stands, it probably won't do anything to help me at all, and it will just be hurting two people to get back at one. And I don't work like that. As poor in the athletic department as he is, he does try and sometimes that's all that matters. He's very persistent too, and that's usually a good thing. He took the challenge and faced in head on, and seems to be a fast healer, considering he doesn't have a concussion from hitting the buoy. He's not the smartest guy around either, but, like I said, he does try hard.  
Harold: I dislike for no reason, as in, beyond my dislike of people in general. But he had jumped off the cliff, and I wanted to see him get hurt and pick on him some more, so that rules him out (I'm oddly sadistic to him, not sure why).  
Bridgette: No real reason to vote her out. She doesn't seem as violent as Eva, though she wasn't as calm as me or the Wonder Twins with Ezekiel's comments (Well, me). She jumped first, which means she's either brave or foolish, or both. But she's athletic, and probably smart. Plus, getting rid of her would mess with Geoff, no reason to do that.  
DJ: He didn't jump, plain and simple. But like Duncan said, he's athletic, and he could help our team out in physical challenges. Our team was well equipped for physical challenges, and I have no intention of ruining that. Though he was clearly a chicken (a cockroach, I mean really?) he was also gentle. No real reason to vote him out, according to myself, anyway.  
Geoff: He didn't strike me as the type who always uses his brain. But he clearly had a lot of motivation, and is trying to keep as much peace within, at least, our team as possible. Plus we seem to have similar goals. Making friends. Plus, he seems relatively athletic, and who knows what surprises he has in store.  
Duncan: My friend, I guess. He's definitely athletic, that much is clear, and I have no reason whatsoever to vote him off. He's cool and probably resourceful from his time in Juvie.  
Myself: I'm know quite a bit about myself, obviously. And we're not aloud to vote for ourselves for a while.  
Courtney: Bossy, prepy, know-it-all, the list goes on. She may have leadership skills, but, in all honestly, so does Geoff. She continuously bolstered (if that's the right word) about her C.I.T. status, and isn't someone whom I would like as a leader. Her kindness is pretty see-though, at least to me, but at least she checked on Izzy. (Dang it Izzy! Why did you have to switch!)  
Eva may even vote for Courtney, having taken revenge on Ezekiel. And I know she won't be alone in that, if she does. Because, when I cast my vote, it read Courtney.  
Later, we were sitting around the bonfire (with an actual fire in the pit… .… okay, snapping out of it) and waiting for Chris to speak. He had a plate of marshmallows, for whatever reason. Maybe we make smores at some point? I just stared at the fire again.  
"Dude," I heard Duncan say, most likely to Ezekiel, "You've got a lot to learn about the real world." I looked back (away from the fire T_T) to see Katie and Sadie looking at the prairie boy with evil smiles. Whoa. She-Devils. That's the vibes I'm getting.  
"Killer Bass." Chris said, finally. "At camp, marshmallow's represent a tasty treat that you enjoy roasting by the fire." Yes, and…? "At this camp, marshmallows represent life." he paused, and I wondered if we'd have to wait another ten minutes before he'd start talking again, not that I don't mind the silence, but this was dragging on. At least I know what the marshmallow's are for. "You've all cast you're votes and made your decision. There are only eleven marshmallow's on this plate." Wow, he counted right for once! Good job! You've passed Kindergarten! "When I call your name, come up, and claim your marshmallow. The camper who does not receive a marshmallow tonight, must immediately return to the Dock of Shame, to catch the Boat of Losers." I noticed the Boat of Losers was the same boat that picked us up after we had jumped, and therefore partially won, the challenge today. Oh life's little quirks. "That means, you're out of the contest, and you can't come back." For some reason, that had an effect on everyone. Yeah, they're just going to let you back on the competition the week after you left. Duh it's permanent! "Ever. The first marshmallow goes to… Geoff." The pink-shirted party-boy smiled and ran up. "Tyler." Tyler seemed even more enthusiastic, he pumped his arms and cheered.  
"Whoo-hoo-hoo! Yeah! Place at the table!"  
"Katie." the skinnier Wonder Twin said nothing, but stood up. "Bridgette." Bridgette basically mimicked Katie. "DJ." DJ was clearly relived, considering he had a reason to be voted out. "Annie." I said nothing, and simply walked up and placed my marshmallow on my provided stick. At least I got called before Harold or, Sinnoh forbid, Courtney. "Harold." Well, speak of the nerdling. "Sadie." And there is the other half of the Wonder Twin brain.  
"Oh yay! Thank you, thank you, thank you!"  
"Duncan." I sighed inwardly, thank goodness. I then realized that we were down to two people, Courtney… and Ezekiel. They wouldn't actually… would they… "Campers, this, is the final marshmallow of the evening." After what felt like an eternity, Chris finally decided to spare us. "Courtney." Aw, man! Ezekiel looked, not horrified, more… guilty. -Ish. Courtney sighed and ran over for her marshmallow. "Can't say I'm shocked, saw you picking your nose dude." I mentally shuddered, "Not cool." Chris walked up to him and gestured toward the docks. "Dock of Shame is that way bro." A shame, I think I would have become friends with him faster then Courtney. If I become friends with Courtney at all. He walked past us and I heard him mumble an apology, inaudible to all but me. I forgive you, Zeke, if that is what it was. "The rest of you," Chris started again, and all of us held out our marshmallows-on-sticks, "enjoy your marshmallows. You're all safe. For tonight."  
Confesional  
Gwen: Yep, this camp pretty much still sucks. But now that I'm here I might as well actually try to win.  
Confessional Over  
Later, as we walked back, I saw Gwen leave the confessional, just ahead of us. When we got back to camp, we saw why. The Gophers had decided to have a hot tub party to celebrate the first Total Drama Island victory ever. I heard Cody say something about his team, and LeShawna started cheering. I looked back to see her, Noah and Owen dancing while cheering for their team.  
"Are you recording this? Good." I heard a familiar prep's voice say and stopped and hid in the shadows, to see Courtney speaking directly to the camera. "They can enjoy their little party all they want." It just hit me then that the other team was probably just trying to rub their win in our faces. Well, some anyway. "But I am gonna win this competition. And no one is going to stop me." I smiled, I had been right about her. She's not going to win, though. Not if I have anything to say about it.  
And I do.  
Later, I had jumped into my tree and was laying down. After I had just about fallen asleep, a horrible loud snoring came from our cabins. Harold, I assume. Softly, so as to not disturb anyone else, I began to sing to myself.  
"When daytime turns to night. When the moon shines bright. When you're tucked in tight. When everything's all right…"  
I awoke to a scream, and for some reason, I was in the Bass Cabin. Carried in I suppose. I looked around and it took me two seconds to register what was wrong.  
Sadie.  
Dead.  
No marks… nothing! She was just, dead! I looked around at everyone's reactions. DJ had been the one screaming, and the only other one awake. Even Katie was still asleep! I asked the big jock what happened, but he didn't seem to notice me. I looked around and saw, to my horror, a familiar figure outside our window. Against my better judgment, I jumped over Sadie to investigate, sort of. After I had left a familiar, bone-chilling voice that sends shivers down my spine spoke, the figure revealing himself.  
"Enjoying my handiwork?" he asked. The familiar purple bowler hat was one of the lightest colors he had, even his skin was dark purple.  
"What are you doing here?" I asked, then realized I was in my normal clothes, Green jeans, black t-shirt, my favorite black sneakers, and my green-spotted black hair visible and, as usual, spiky and unmanageable (not that I really cared).  
"I came to get you, of course." The Dark Man (that was what I called him) cracked an evil smile. "You did join without your dad's permission."  
"Go to heck." I said as calmly as I could. Though on the inside I was frozen solid with fear.  
"Now now, no way to talk to your old man, is it? I've been looking for you."  
"You will never be my father." I whispered, to myself mainly.  
"Never say never. The world is often times unpredictable. And haven't there been times, small times when you lose control, that you can really see the resemblance?" He said it so calm, but every inch of me was in pain, I clutched my head.  
"JUST DIE ALREADY!" I screamed, lashing out. He just smiled, and pointed one of his demon fingers to the Bass Cabin again. I looked inside, to see it was no longer DJ mourning Sadie. It was my redheaded, half Cloyster gal pal Cloy. Mourning her boy, my best friend. Arcine. The long-haired blonde in orange clothes, just as dead as the girl he replaced. But now I saw why there were no marks. Now I saw the pools of water. He was drowned, again! No no no no no! Suddenly Cloy's head fell off her body, just like how she had been beheaded. I withheld a scream, it was happening again, all again! Fury weld up in me as I remembered. It had been Dark Man's fault! Dark Man had ordered the attack, Dark Man had tied me up when my best friend, who couldn't swim, was chucked into the water by the explosion, that Dark Man created. Dark Man had swung the saber that ended Cloy's life! And he had held the weapon that killed by beloved master… I turned back to him, horrified, when I saw him holding Duncan under his right arm (my left) and Lucario under his left. Both dead. The exact same way, the second time for my beloved Lucario. No, this can't be happening… The cabins burst into flames and spread out, until I was in a burning village. No… I was back at Poke' Human village, where every friend I had ever had, minus the one that betrayed me, had been taken from me. By Dark Man! No, not again. It was a mistake coming here. It was a mistake thinking I could ever have friends! No, no. No. No. NO. NO! He laughed like the madman he was and I shut my eyes…  
And smacked hard against the ground. I Withheld a groan, and shifted off my face and stomach to a sitting position. I looked around, after finally reopened my eyes. I was at camp. No fire. No screaming or crying. Just the occasional loud snore from the Bass cabin. A nightmare. A horrible, wound-reopening nightmare. I shuddered, and withheld a tear. Don't cry you wimp. Tears are weakness. But the nightmare taught me something. I had made a horrible mistake. If I had any compassion in my heart at all towards anyone here, I would leave the camp. Now. And never look back. I turned and started to walk away. But when I got to an open spot in the woods I heard a familiar voice, not terrifying, cold or cruel like Dark Man's, but familiar.  
"Leaving already? I guess that will give me an advantage. Though you didn't strike me as the quitting type. Or any type at all, really." I turned to see a familiar bookworm, aka Noah. It looked like he had been reading, considering he had a book titled "Moonlight Densetsu" with him. Then his eyes widened with concern and I realized why, I was still shaking slightly from my nightmare. "You okay?" Slowly, I nodded. I had to be okay. No matter what, I always had to be okay, emotionally at least… If I wasn't, I was easy prey. For nasty Purebloods, Dark Man, and traitors alike… I couldn't affourd to not be okay, all the time. He arched an eyebrow. "You're shaking pretty bad. You want to sit down?" Slowly, carefully, I sat down next to him. The silence had an awkward air. He didn't say anything and, as far as I knew, didn't think I could talk. I wasn't ready to give up the goat, if that's how the expression goes. So most of the time, we were sitting in silence. I tied to calm down, but every time I almost did, the forest seemed to go up in flames, and not the mesmerizing kind either. The evil, destructive kind, and I would begin shaking again. As for Noah, well, like I said, I wasn't going to talk, and we were on different teams, probably not allowed to do… I don't know. After several minutes, Noah spoke. "I come here to read… sometimes. It's oddly peaceful, even though I've never been an outdoorsy kind of person. I'm a bit surprised your quitting, after all, you look like you'd try to protect your team from elimination." he stood up. "We'd better head back and get some sleep. Who knows what kind of torture Chris has in mind for tomorrow." I stood back up slowly and nodded. If our first challenge was mild compared to the others, I didn't want to think about what would happen to the others in the others. We walked back to the cabins in silence. "Night." Noah told me before going back into the Gopher's cabin quietly. I jumped back into my tree, and lied down for some, hopefully more peaceful, sleep. I didn't have another nightmare, because something Noah had said, about me 'protecting' my team hit me dead on. I had to protect everyone here. That would keep me here. That would be my goal right after making friends. Even the people I didn't like, I would still protect. He's not taking anyone else from me. I won't let him!


	4. Chapter 3: to be rewritten

**Me: Okay, I'm changing the alignment, thing, to the way I actually see it as I type it! Hooray! Also, for those of you who want to know, I stopped using the nicknames because once we're about twenty chapters in, it would be a bit confusing as to why Annie was calling Heather 'Sunglasses'.  
**

Chapter 4: The Big Sleep  
The next week, I woke up at my usual time and decided to go for a swim, to wash myself off. After my usual morning routine (and planting and harvesting some fast-growing berries) I heard what sounded like a blow horn and hurried back, lining up with the rest of the (sleepy) Bass, with the exception of Duncan, who had gets up around the time I do.  
"Morning." Chris greeted us once we had all lined up, "Hope you slept well."  
"Hi Chris," Heather said, "You look really buff in those shorts." she said, sucking up. Or maybe she's just nicer in the mornings. Nah, she's sucking up.  
"I know." Chris said, winking at her. "Okay, I hope you're all ready because your next challenge begins in exactly one minute!" he poked his watch.  
"Oh excuse me! I don't know if that's enough time to eat breakfast!" Owen said.  
"Oh, you'll get breakfast Owen. Right after you complete your 20 Kilometer run around the lake!" No biggie. I ran that much during my training on an empty stomach on a daily basis.  
"Oh, so you're funny now? You know what I think would be funny…" Eva yelled over her music, which she was listening to from her I-pod. She walked up to Chris preparing to punch his lights out, which I would have enjoyed seeing, but Duncan and Geoff held her back.  
"Eva!" Courtney whispered to her, "Try to control your temper!" Courtney backed away quickly, and Eva looked back at Chris.  
"You're enjoying this aren't you?"  
"A little." Chris said, then pointed to his watch, "You have thirty seconds."  
Confessional:  
Courtney: Okay, that girl Eva, has got to get a handle on her temper. She'd only been here one day before she threw her suitcase out a window and broke a lock on one of the bathroom doors.  
Confessional over  
We were all lined up in the forest, and I smiled. I knew precisely how I was getting to the main lodge, and it wasn't running. It was better.  
"Okay runners!" Chris said. "On your marks, get set, Go!" Everyone ran and, after losing the others, I hoped into a tree and started jumping through them like a monkey. I could race a Sceptile through the trees. Maybe not win, but I could give one a run for it's money. It took me six minutes, tops, to get to the main lodge. I opened the door and Chef fell over backwards, clearly not expecting anyone for a while. I walked over, somewhat exhausted due to my speed, to the Bass table and sat down. After what felt like an eternity, some people came into the lodge, and seemed shocked to see me here. Finally, we were missing only Harold, LeShawna, Owen, and Noah. I was a bit concerned they'd been eaten by bears or something worse. Suddenly, Owen burst in carrying an unconscious (or so it looked) Noah over his shoulder. I was a bit concerned.  
"Clear a table, stat!" He ran over to a table and started pumping on his chest. LeShawna (in the doorway) fell to her knees.  
"Oh!" she cried in exhaustion, "We made it!" Then she started crawling to the table Owen had put Noah on. I looked over at Noah in concern, until I heard Courtney berating Harold for losing us the challenge.  
"I think I'm having heart palpitations." Harold said, struggling to breath, or keep his heart beating. Courtney clearly didn't care, which wasn't cool. If he was fine, berate him all you want, preppy. But if he is in a serious medical condition, at least don't scold him.  
"Hey, wait a minute." Gwen said, who was over with some of the other Gophers. "If they lost, that means, we won the challenge!" All the Gopher's, including Noah, who had been faking the whole time, both annoyingly and thankfully, cheered.  
"Whoa there, hold your horses guys," Chris said, "that wasn't the challenge."  
Without missing a beat, Gwen voiced aloud what I, and most likely many other people, were thinking. "What did he just say?" Chris walked over to a purple curtain, that I am 100% SURE wasn't there thirty seconds ago, and asked a question. "Who's, hungry?" he asked, moving the curtain to reveal a huge buffet.  
Confessional:  
Gwen: After what felt like a whole week of brown sludge, I almost cried when I saw that buffet.  
Owen: And then I saw it! The buffet table! It was beautiful. There was turkey! And anima bars! And baked beans in maple syrup! Can I have a minute? *Begins crying with joy*  
Confessional over  
I liked to keep things simple, so fancy stuff on the table wasn't really my cup of tea. Instead, I had some turkey and fruits, I had had my breakfast already (berries, milk and an orange I ate in six seconds) so I wasn't really hungry. I ate more to be polite than anything else. I mean, I didn't trust Chris or Chef NEARLY as far as I could throw them, but they had gone through the trouble of preparing some edible food for once. And I had an antidote on hand. After I had finished my second apple, I looked around and saw people who had eaten too much too fast groaning. LeShawna was even lying on the floor. Chris then jumped on top of the now empty table with his megaphone.  
"Okay campers! Time for part two of your challenge!"  
"I thought eating was the second part." Owen said.  
"What more do you want from us?" Gwen asked.  
"Weird Goth Girl is right. Haven't we been through enough?" Heather asked, annoyed.  
"Let me think about that." Chris said, "No. It's time for… the Awake-a-thon!"  
"The what-a-thon?" Owen asked, scared.  
"Don't worry!" Chris said, still using his megaphone despite the fact that he was two feet from Owen. "This is an easy one! The team with the last camper standing wins invincibility."  
"So what your saying is, the 20 K run and the turkey eating frenzy were part of your evil plan to make it harder for us to stay awake?"  
"That's right Gwen!"  
"Man he's good."  
"Move! Move! Move!" Trent walked up to Gwen.  
"So, how long do you think it will be until everyone's out cold?"  
"About an hour, give or take." Gwen replied, than watched Owen walk past, looking like the living dead. "Maybe less."  
We all gathered at the campfire pit, and everyone had a seat. Gopher's on one side, Bass on the other. I amused myself by thinking up Pokemon Battle and Contest strategies. And tending to my berries. Luckily for me and them, they were in berry pots, so I was able to run back and get them before the contest began. After twelve hours, everybody else seemed tired as heck and had bags under their eyes, the only one moving was Owen, which probably wasn't a smart idea.  
"Whoo hoo! Stay awake for twelve hours? I can do that in my sleep! Whoo hoo!" he cheered, before falling over like a tree.  
Confessional:  
Gwen: The Awake-a-thon was definitely the most brutal thing I've ever done in my life.  
Confessional over  
Gwen said something that I couldn't quite make out, to which Trent did the same. I saw Gwen look away with a smile, and realized he must have said something sweet. Then it was back to the old grind, thinking up strategies, and generally not allowing myself to fall asleep.  
After a while, I heard Gwen say something: "What are you doing?" I looked over to see Lindsay began standing on her head and Beth asked if she could as well. Heather asked the two to follow her and brought them to the edge of the campfire pit. I couldn't quite make out the words until Lindsay squealed:  
"EEEEE!" Rubbing my ears, I thought I could have sworn that that was copyright Wonder Twins. After another long while, Eva stood up.  
"I'm going to the bathroom." she said, and walked away. Heather went over to stretch. I wasn't really paying attention. I started to think about my nightmare, and decided I'd have to continue training. In front of the others (not to mention the cameras) I couldn't practice my elemental abilities or spar with my Pokemon, but I could do really basic stuff. Before I knew it, it was night again. Night's are hard, because my body is pretty much programmed for me to be out like a light at exactly ten, and then back again at six. But as long as I stayed busy, mentally at least, I could outlast the tiredness that pulled stronger every night, and retreated at daybreak. Also, luckily for us, we were given food and water so that we wouldn't die of thirst or starvation. Suddenly Tyler screamed and any and all tiredness in my head was jerked away as I sat strait up. I noticed him looking at the Wonder Twins while he screamed, and realized he must have hallucinated something. Like a bear or a land shark or something. I looked over at the Gopher and saw that Noah and Izzy were asleep, but Gwen and Trent were still standing. I didn't really look at anyone else. Katie, Sadie and Tyler were awake, as were Duncan and myself.  
"Congratulations campers!" Chris said in a way that sounded way too awake for my taste. "You've made it to the twenty-four hour mark. Time to take things up a notch." He removed a sheet from a pile I KNOW was not there a second ago, revealing a pile of books. And Chef standing next to him in a pink sheep costume. I had trouble not laughing. "Fairytales!"  
"Oh, he's not serious!" Gwen said, horrified. Hey, I like fairytales, myself. I try to figure out how things would actually work. Chris cleared throat and started in a monotone voice.  
"Once, upon a time. There was, inside this boring kingdom, a boring village. And inside this boring, sleepy, village, filled with, very boring children. Who did very boring things…" I knew where this was heading. I did everything in my power to block him out. I think it might of worked, but then I saw Chef dancing around in a tutu throwing pixie dust around to the tune of the Nutcracker and wondered if I had fallen asleep. When I saw the other contestants faces, I realized that either their my-dream selves were seeing it too (which was very probable) or Chef was actually dancing in a tutu. I shuddered, then turned away. Then I heard what sounded like a tree falling and saw a collapsed tree with DJ's hand sticking out from under it. Ouch. An intern came and moved it, and carried DJ, who was out of the running, away. I looked around and noticed I wasn't the only one planning on training, Courtney was jogging in place, for who knows how long she intended to or how long she had been. I decided to do some sit-ups. I'd done about fifty then changed to squats. I'd do fifty squats, then change to push-ups, then do fifty of them then take a break for five minutes then repeat everything. It was good, working the stomach, legs and arms. I'd stretch occasionally on the break too. I wasn't going down. I know that. I don't know how long that went on for. After a while the nights made my brain go a little fuzzy. I was worried about that. I hadn't been called out for falling asleep yet. But I was still worried I'd fallen asleep and was dreaming I was still awake and doing my exercises. Or doing my exercises in my sleep.  
"His eyelids are painted! I saw it!" I heard Eva yell. Okay, I know I'm not asleep now, thank you Eva. I paused from my squats and blinked to clear my somewhat glazed-over eyes, and saw her pointing at Justin. Of course. I'm surprised it's not Courtney  
"That is so freaking cool!" Chris said. "But, you're still out dude."  
After a while, I started singing songs in my head. I'll Make a Man Out of You was the one I repeated the most often, it reminded me of the training Lucario put me through. He'd be proud, I hope. I remembered dodging logs while blindfolded to practice my aura sensing (which I only used in case of a severe emergency), swimming in the river with Sharpedo in it (all of which were tame and there only to provide encouragement), hoping on poles you couldn't even see because they were needle thin, and everything else… I missed it. And I missed everyone. Rai, Lucario, Star, Disastrous, Twiggy, Arcine, Lopunny, Skye, Kitty, everyone. I had a few Pokemon left, Bun, Chimchar, Ambipalm, and others, but none could quite replace my old friends. Of course, Bun was like a little brother, so he has a different place in my heart, and Ambipalm was one of my old friends, but still. Suddenly, I heard Duncan yell.  
"Oh gross it works! Dude peeded his pants!" I looked up from my push-ups, my arms were burning but this was the first time I stopped, and looked up. He was pointing to Harold, who, had, jizzed in his pants. Then I realized the fuzziness in my brain had receded to a minimum, and realized it was morning. I did my three final push-ups and sat on the ground and took a large gulp of air. I had made it, so far so good. Suddenly, I heard screaming from the 'Screaming' Gopher's and looked over to see it was Noah and Cody. They ran from each other and separated as far as possible. I wondered what that could be about. Eventually, it was down to six of us. Three Gophers: Heather, Trent and Gwen, the latter two who had been flirting most of the time. And three Bass: Me, Eva and Duncan.  
"What is the matter with you people?" Chris said, and I'm sure he had been sleeping somewhere. He had what looked like a Starbucks coffee in his hand, taking a sip, most likely to peeve us off. Though I don't drink coffee, myself. "Come on, falling asleep already?" I dislike you Chris, I really dislike you. Gwen grabbed onto the bottom of his pants' leg.  
"Gotta hook me up man, I'll even eat the grinds! Anything!" she begged, reaching for his coffee.  
"Alright, you six stay with me." Chris said, denying Gwen, which annoyed me severely. I mean, she was already reduced to begging! What more did you want? "The rest of you, go and get a shower for Heaven's sake! You stink!" Harold ran off, for obvious reasons. Chris took another mocking sip of coffee. "I didn't want it to come to this. I told that to Chef Hatchet last night, I said: 'Chef, I don't want it to have to come to this. But, darn it! These campers are tough!' And so I've come up with the most boring, sleep-inducing activity, I can find."  
Confessional:  
Gwen: Oh come on, what now? Okay, you know what? Bring it on.  
Confessional over  
Chris held up a large, red book. Oh crud, I was getting bad vibes already. He opened it and a beaver popped out. Chris spoke in the same monotone voice he used for the fairytales  
"The history of Canada. A pop-up book, chapter one. The Beaver. National symbol and a 'Dam' fine hat." Almost everyone groaned. Not me. I'm going to outlast this. I think. I hope.  
I don't care anymore. All things considered, you have to wonder if it's even worth it. But then again, we lost the last challenge. We're not losing again. But I wanted Duncan and Eva to win with me. It was a stupid impulse, but, at the moment, I had no will to resist. It wasn't going to hurt or kill anyone. Maybe shock them, but not kill them. I stood up and left, grabbing a bucket. By all means, I shouldn't have been able to fit together a single coherent thought, but somehow, I could still think. It was probably all my training, all I'd been through, and my nightmare that had kept me on my toes. Never let your guard down. I filled the bucket with ice-cold water. And when I say/think ice-cold, I literally mean a single half-degree Fahrenheit above freezing. I walked back, doing everything in my power to avoid stumbling and spilling the water. When I got back, I saw Eva and Heather on the ground asleep. Only me and Duncan now. I knew I could outlast Trent though. And just as I thought that, I saw Trent start to drift off.  
"Trent!" Gwen cried in horror upon seeing her crush falling to the ground.  
"Noooo…" Trent cried in slow-motion as he hit the ground before falling asleep.  
"Don't leave me." Gwen practically begged, but it was no good. He was asleep and out of the competition. Poor Gwen. You know what? Screw the inter-team and hate of Purebloods. Gwen is my friend and I'm not going to see her go down. I poured the water on Duncan and Gwen, may the best team win.  
"Yo, Annie. For leaving the campfire pit, you disqualified yourself." Chris said, cockily. What? Why didn't he bother to say anything as I was leaving? I didn't betray showing the anger I felt, and simply shrugged.  
"Good luck." I whispered to Duncan as I left, carrying an unconscious Eva with me. After I got back to the cabins, there was no movement. It was so eerily quiet it was creepy. I managed to think vagley clearly enough to put Eva in her bed (turns out, everybody was asleep), then got back to my tree and fell into a deep, dreamless, sleep. After what could have been anything from a second to a few years, I heard Eva screaming in rage. Despite my abnormal tiredness, which was an obvious setback to having my head being able to function when it should have been too tired to, I jerked awake. I looked back (I had managed not to fall out of my tree this time) to see things getting thrown out of the cabin. I immediately jumped down and started catching things and putting them into a pile, just incase something might break other wise. I was being faster than normal, adrenaline from nowhere was forcing my body to move faster than I would have usually allowed. Or been able to.  
"Where, is my MP3 Player?" She looked out the window, and I had to sympathize, if I had one and lost it, I would be horrified and, in our current conditions, been throwing a fit too. Of course, when I throw temper-tantrums, they're really fricken' dangerous. More so than Eva, so I've learned to control my temper and swallow my emotions. "One of you must have stolen it! I need my music!" Both of us need our music, though mine comes from my head. "No one is going anywhere until I get my MP3 Player back!" She then threw and nearly nailed Harold in the head with a book. She went back into the cabins to search some more for her music player, leaving our team members terrified, except for those who were too tired to care.  
"Okay, whoever took it better give it up now," Courtney said, I arched my eyebrow, noticing that she was indirectly saying it was anyone other than herself, "before she destroys the whole camp!"  
"Hey guys." Heather said, walking up to us. I glared, though I had no reason to. I couldn't be as sure about anything about her because we weren't on the same team and, therefore, weren't together as much. "Wow. This place is a real mess."  
"Someone stole Eva's MP3 Player." Courtney said, which explained all. Heather smiled, which I didn't like at all.  
"You don't mean this do you?" she asked, holding up and MP3 Player and headphones. "I was wondering who it belonged to." Eva ran past me to Heather. "I found it by the campfire pit, you must have dropped it."  
"Oh thank you! Thank you, thank you!" That was all I heard, because I passed out from tiredness right then. I still had no clue who won and, personally, I don't care.  
After a while, or maybe, not so long, I felt someone shake me awake, albeit gently.  
"Hey, it's time to vote someone off." DJ's voice said. I withheld a groan, but held my head. I was in the Bass cabin, causing me fear due to the nightmare I couldn't get out of my head. I was looking around quickly, which was not helping a headache I was getting any.  
"Eva brought you in so you could get some sleep, you seemed really tired. Are you alright?" I nodded slowly, despite my headache.  
I didn't really think about who I was going to vote of. I think I put Harold's name in, because I didn't like him and couldn't think much at the moment, and stumbled towards the campfire pit. I tripped six times. Once I was actually sitting down in a seat, Chris walked up.  
"You've all cast your votes and made your decisions. There are only ten marshmallows on this plate. When I call your name, come up, and claim your marshmallow. The camper who does not receive a marshmallow must immediately return to the Dock of Shame. Catch the Boat of Losers. And leave. And you can never come back. Ever." I wanted to shout at him for wasting our precious sleeping time with a speech we'd all heard already. "The first marshmallow goes to Duncan. Annie. Bridgette. Courtney. Katie and Sadie."  
"YEEEEEE!"  
"Tyler." I nodded off at that point again. And I'm sure Duncan might have too. I jerked awake just in time for Harold to receive the final marshmallow, leaving Eva as the eliminated party.  
"Nice. Really nice. Who needs this stupid T.V. show anyway!" she yelled. Then, for the heck of it, kicked Chris in the shin, which was fun to watch. I didn't really pay attention besides Courtney almost getting skewered with a stick. I just wanted to go back to my tree and sleep through the next three days.  
It was not to be as, once again, the peaceful nights were interrupted by the horror that is Harold's snores. Ugh, somebody shut him up! After ten nerve-wracking minutes of non-sleep and Harold's snores, I used my elemental abilities to sneak into the Bass cabin, all sorts of mean, torturous ideas forming in my head. Apparently, I wasn't the only one. The snores had woken every other single Bass member, and DJ and Geoff were holding Duncan back so he wouldn't put Harold in the hospital. He was still inching very slowly towards him though, which was understandable. Duncan had been awake for practically a week, perhaps longer. Harold was denying him the ability to sleep. The only one on our team who was just as sleepy, perhaps more so, was me. My brain had been whirring and adrenaline coursed through me despite the fact that that shouldn't have happened. Which made me a whole heck of a lot tired in the aftermath than I should have been.  
"It's no use." Bridgette whispered. "Even if we wake him up, he'll just go back to sleep and start snoring again."  
"Which is why we kill him." Duncan said, dead serious.  
"Look, as much as I agree with you, we can't kill him." Courtney said, causing him to smirk. She looked away disgusted and I realized I was missing something.  
"Okay, then, like, what do we do?" Katie asked.  
"It's not as if we can go to sleep with his constant snores." Sadie said. I walked in between Katie and Sadie, since nobody seemed to notice I was here. The two shrieked, thankfully quietly, and all eyes fell on me. I felt somewhat humiliated. But there was an idea in my head. Revenge. I held out a magic marker from my pocket and Duncan seemed to get the message.  
"Mustache?" he asked, smiling. I nodded, with a devious smile no one could see that matched Duncan's so well, had I been thinking strait I would have been a little scared. Or maybe terrified.  
"How will that help with the snores?" Bridgette asked.  
"It won't. But it will make me feel a bit better." Duncan said, scribbling the mustache on Harold's face.  
I nodded and, unbeknownst to everybody, I slipped out of the cabin quietly. Then I did something that, under normal circumstances, I would never have done. I sang. Out loud. In a rare burst of misguided self-confidence, I sang the lullaby.  
"…Slip softly to that place, where secret thoughts run free. And there come face to face, with who you want to be! So, swim across the ocean blue, fly a rocket to the moon…"  
I think I was able to sleep, because next thing I knew, it was morning. Who knows how long it had been since I fell asleep. My brain and body wanted a rest from the whirring and adrenaline, and it was going to freaking have it.


	5. Chapter 4: to be rewritten

Chapter 5: Dodgebrawl  
"Yo! Get down here sleepy butt!" I heard Chris yell from below my tree… Oh give me five more minutes, or maybe a month. "Look, we missed too much time on the last challenge, your doing another one today!" I admit, I threw an entire tree branch (the one below me) at him. I was not in the best control of my temper at the moment. How I got to the Main Lodge, or even down the tree, I'm still not sure. I was only vagly aware of when Duncan sat next to me. "Duuuncaaan." Chris said. I had learned Duncan had taken a dive while in the bathroom, the poor guy. "You look like death dude." I'll say. We tortured ourselves with a lack of sleep for what felt like a month, only to lose?  
"Stuff it." That was Duncan's only reply before he tried to go back to sleep.  
"Harold snored all night." Courtney explained. Chris laughed.  
"Wooow. Four nights with no sleep?" We'd only been awake three days? That can't be right… of course, he might just be trying to seem less abusive for the cameras. It had to be at least a week. "How much are you hurting dude?"  
"Wanna find out?" He asked, peeved off severely. I was the only one who didn't hide under the table.  
"No! No, it's cool. It's cool." Suddenly, the door opened, revealing… someone I really don't want to ever see ever again right now. Harold. He was apparently completely unaware that he had a marker mustache on his face. Once he passed the Gophers, they started laughing, and my fellow Bass, minus Duncan, began laughing the second he sat down.  
"Okay, what?" Geoff decided to spare him.  
"Someone messed with your face dude." Harold picked up a spoon to use as a mirror.  
"Hey, sweet 'stash." He liked it? This only further emphasizes his weirdness.  
"Hey everyone! It's Gwen" Chris announced, causing the Screaming Gopher's to cheer. I looked over and saw said girl moving very fricken' slowly to her table. I was happy for her win, though.  
"I'm so tired. I can't feel my face." She said, before her head slammed against the table. I would have flinched had I had the energy.  
Confessional:  
Courtney: We are so sucking right now! Okay yes, Eva was a psycho. But at least she was an athletic psycho!  
Confessional Over  
"Hey Fish Heads!" I heard Heather yell. "Way to kick out your strongest player! Why don't you give up now?" Courtney used her spoon to fling some 'oatmeal' at Heather, who sidestepped causing it to hit Gwen instead. "Missed me." Courtney just crossed her arms, not bothering to apologize to Gwen, annoyingly.  
"Okay campers listen up." Chris said. "Your next challenge begins in ten minutes, and be prepared to bring it."  
"What do you think it will be?" Sadie asked. Bridgette groaned.  
"Knowing Chris, sports something. Or something else physically exhausting." I withheld a groan myself. I was still working on getting my body clock back to normal. Hey, is it true a person can die of lack of sleep?  
After getting to some gymnasium place, I guided Duncan to our bleachers and we both crashed on them. Like Burn-outs. At least I was in a sitting position.  
"Wake me up," Duncan said, pointing to our team, "and it will be the last thing you do." he said, then promptly fell asleep on top of me. I guess I'm out of the running too. Tyler gulped.  
"This is all your fault you know." Courtney accused Harold. "You and your snoring face!"  
"It's called a medical condition. GOSH!" I smirked. My nickname for him, Napoleon, was a good call. Chef decided to break up the fight by blowing loud on his whistle. He gave all of us evil glares as he, dressed in a ref's uniform, walked over to Chris.  
"Today's challenge," which I won't be doing either "is the classic game of dodge ball." Chris told us. I couldn't have possibly guessed considering he was standing next to a pile of them. "The first rule of Dogeball is-"  
"Do not talk about Dogeball?" Noah said, causing myself and Owen to chuckle.  
"As I was saying," Chris said, surprisingly not annoyed by the interruption, "If you get hit with the ball…" He threw the ball, hard, nailing Courtney in the stomach.  
"Ow!"  
"You're out."  
"You can't do that!" Courtney said, angry, throwing the ball back at Chris in an attempt to hurt him.  
"If you catch the ball, the thrower gets sent out and the catcher gets to bring in another team member out on the court."  
"Throwing balls," Noah said, "Gee, another mental challenging test."  
"I know right?" Lindsay said, evidently not catching his sarcasm. I can only imagine the look on Noah's face.  
"Okay, now Geoff, try to hit me." Chris said, throwing the ball to the party guy. "If your holding a ball, you can use it to deflect a ball." Chris said, holding a ball Chef tossed him. "But, if it knocks the ball out of your hands," he dropped his ball, let me guess, we're out? "You're out." Knew it.  
"What do I do if the ball comes at me again?" Lindsay asked. I rolled my eyes. Why don't you think of the NAME OF THE GAME. You dodge, the ball. Dodge ball.  
"You dodge!" Chris said, using the ball (That was somehow backin his hands) to deflect the ball Geoff just threw, causing it to knock Lindsay to the ground before she had time to react. "Oooh, you were supposed to dodge."  
"Ow, right." I saw Trent and Cody flinch, so I assume she had a nasty bump or bruise.  
"You have one minute until game time." Chris said, not caring about Lindsay's apparent injury. "Gophers, you'll have to sit one person out each game."  
After Noah volunteered to sit out, everyone on my team came back to our bench to decide who was going in. In the end, it was DJ, Courtney, Katie, Tyler and Harold representing the Bass. Crud.  
"Bring it on, Fishies. Otherwise winning three in a row just won't be as satisfying." Heather said, irritatingly. I could just as easily call her a gerbil. Or a rodent, that would be more accurate.  
"Oh! You're going down!" Tyler said, "We're gonna bring the dinner to the table, and then we're gonna eat it!" Courtney and I had pretty much the same reaction.  
"Both teams ready?" Chris asked. "Best of games five wins. Now, let's dodge some balls!"  
Chef blew his whistle and everybody started cheering, with the exception of myself (for obvious reasons), Duncan (again, for obvious reasons), Gwen (once again, for obvious reasons), and Noah, who was reading a book. Cody made the first strike in the game, narrowly missing Tyler. I assume Tyler put on an angry face, because Cody put on a weak smile. Then, Tyler spun around, and threw after stopping in a random direction. Ugh, this guy is… I'm not sure what the word is. It nearly hit me, but I ducked. It hit Sadie instead. "That'll smear the make up." Chris said, not caring wheatear she was okay or not. What a surprise.  
"Nice job. Now, let's see if you can hit someone on their team!" Courtney yelled, growing more annoyed every second. Before he could even try, however, Owen hit him with a ball so hard he knocked Tyler to the wall with an audible thump.  
"Ow!" Tyler yelled, clutching his stomach as he slid down the wall. "Darn it!" I almost hissed from the pain he was feeling. Chef called him out and Cody and Owen high fived. I saw Sadie smile evilly when Tyler sat down, clutching his stomach, still sore, literally, from him hitting her in the face with the ball.  
"Time to unleash my wicked skills!" Harold said, LeShawna was as skeptical as I.  
"Yeah? Then bu-ring it String Bean! Let's see what you got!" Harold's pathetic performance consisted of throwing the ball at the ground (which already rendered it useless) so it bounced, crashing into the ceiling, nearly breaking it, then rolling over the line to LeShawna. What happened next was obvious, including Harold's 8 point faceplant. His girlish scream didn't hurt the situation either.  
"And that's how we roll!" Lindsay walked up to her team.  
"Can remind me what I'm supposed to do with this again?" she asked, before Katie's ball smacked her hard on the head. She, Katie, not Lindsay, high fived DJ and Courtney for the first Bass take-out of the challenge. I noticed Tyler wave at Lindsay, and she smiled back. Next thing Tyler had gotten hit in the Kiwi's with a powerfully-thrown rubber ball.  
"Mommy…" he squeaked.  
"What the heck was that!" Courtney asked, ticked as heck. "Ref! He's not even on the court!"  
Chef looked at… Heather. What was that girls problem?  
"Oopsies, slipped." she said, in a way that made me positive she hadn't. That does it, we are winning this challenge! Courtney was just as ticked off as I was, and threw a ball at her, which Owen caught. Courtney wasn't too happy about that. Gwen was sent in, and almost immediately hit in the head by DJ.  
"OOH! Sorry."  
"Oh, it's cool. Trust me." the very sleepy goth said. Eventually, it was down to just Cody vs. DJ and Kadie.  
"Easy out, guys. Easy out." Courtney encouraged. While appreciated, your choice of words may come back to haunt you. Cody then threw the ball in a way that, when DJ ducked so it wouldn't hit him, it curved around and bounced off his behind. That was both supposed to be impossible, and hilarious. Especially with DJ's face. Then, to my utter shock, Cody rubbed his ball against his shirt to the point where it was crackling with electricity, and threw it at Katie. She couldn't dodge it, it was FOLOWING her! I noticed Cody guiding it, and realized there was no way you could electrify something rubber that much that fast… am I missing something, or is it possible that I'm not the only elemental… A loud smack brought me out of my thoughts and I saw Katie smacked against the wall. The ball hit her. Ouch, that was not a good position. Cody did this weird victory hop thing back to the Gophers, and Katie walked back, sullen, to us. All the Bass gathered for strategy (staying close to the bench for my sake). It didn't matter though, I know how we're going to win. And we're going to win.  
"We can do this!" Harold said, trying to boost morale in our team. "We just have to believe in ourselves!"  
"Oh, I believe." Courtney said, then snapped. "I believe you SUCK!"  
"Yeah, you throw like a girl." Tyler said, causing Geoff to laugh and Sadie to give him a strange look.  
"You should talk!" Courtney said, saying the exact same thing I was thinking in a nastier tone.  
"It was a warm-up throw!" Tyler persisted. "Look, I can dominate this game. Just give all the balls to me!" Please, for the love of Kyogre, don't listen to him. Chef whistled before they could talk further, which meant they'd have to go back to the court.  
"Fine." Idiot. "Just try to aim for the other side, okay?"  
As my team took their place, I heard Heather on the Gopher's side.  
"All right Noah, you're up." she said in a bossy kind of way that reminded me of Courtney.  
"You know, you guys did such an awesome job on the last game, that I don't want to mess up you're mojo." I withheld a laugh.  
"Fine." Beth went in instead. "Let's go guys!" When the game actually started, the Gophers seemed as surprised as I was (though in a more quizzical way as apposed to my 'ARGH ARE YOU PEOPLE STUPID?') with Tyler holding all the balls. Tyler then began spinning, much the same way as earlier, losing grip on the balls at random times. The only opposing member he managed to hit was Lindsay. Big shocker there.  
"Noooo!"  
"Finally!"  
Tyler ran to Lindsay, and she woke up.  
"Tyler? Oh my gosh, my face! How's my face?" Tyler looked shocked and disgusted for a second.  
"It's really… not that bad." he said, before smiling surprisingly sincerely. Trent and Owen looked at each other. "You still look great." I couldn't see, but I assume he was being honest, at least in his mind.  
"Really?" Trent walked over calmly and gently bounced the ball off Tyler, whom he was standing a foot from by that point. Courtney face-palmed herself.  
"You want to go for a walk?" There was a pause.  
"…Okay!"  
"Great Gaspy that is it!" Owen yelled for no apparent reason, "Game ooooon!" He ran up to and took the ball from Izzy, and threw it hard enough that it knocked out both Sadie and Katie. He repeated with Beth and took out Bridgette. Trent handed Owen the ball, Geoff was out.  
"OOH!" LeShawna cried. "He dropped it like it was hot!" The Gophers cheered again, 2-0. Owen chuckled.  
"I don't know what got into me."  
"I'm glad, someone is trying today." I heard Heather say.  
"Oh, sorry." I heard Noah say. "Whoohoo, way to through those murder balls. Go team go." It took a lot of will not to laugh.  
"Nice team spirit." Heather said, annoyed, then turned to us. "Hey! It's 2-0! How does it feel to suck so much?" Harold decided to prove how much of an idiot he was.  
"Not very good."  
"It's not over yet!" Courtney said, though I doubt she believed it. I, however, am certain we'll win. "It's so over…"

"Okay, this is really bad." Courtney said, sitting on the bench. "One more game, and we lose the whole challenge, again!" She stood up. "We can't let that happen. We need someone strong. Someone mean. Someone who will crush those stupid Gopher's into the dirt!" Everyone looked directly at Duncan.  
"Uh uh." DJ said, "If we wake him up, he'll kill us!"  
"He won't kill us guys." Courtney said, rolling her eyes. "He wants to win too."  
"Courtney's right." Harold said. "We need Duncan's fierceness to win this."  
"That's the spirit Harold." Courtney praised, before blantly turning on him. "Now go wake him up."  
Harold looked terrified. "Why me?"  
"Because, other than Tyler, you're the worst at dodge ball." Courtney explained. "And if he does kill you, you're the only one we can afford to lose." Harsh.  
"No way! I'm not doing it!"  
"Well, who's gonna wake him up." Well, they could probably afford to lose me, maybe I-  
"I've got an idea." Katie said.

I couldn't believe they were doing this. Poking Duncan with a stick, that can't be a good idea. They poked his behind but nothing seemed to happen.  
"We need to go higher." Trembling, they poked his nose. A split second later, Duncan grabbed the stick, his eyes still closed, and got up, off of me. He snapped it in two and stormed over to the closest person involved, Harold.  
"You better have a really good reason for sticking this up my nose." Courtney got in front of Harold, allowing the latter to run, fast.  
"Look, we are down, two-nothing. I can appreciate that you need a little naptime, but we need your help!"  
"Oh, and why should I help you, darling?" he asked.  
"Because, I can personally guarantee you that if we lose this game, you'll be the one going home, darling." After a slight pause, Duncan sighed.  
"Fine, I'll play. On one condition. You do what I say, when I say it." Courtney nodded. "Okay. Here's a strategy I picked up during my first visit to juvie. It's called: Crush the New Guy." Courtney, me, Duncan, Katie and Geoff vs. Izzy, Beth, Owen, Justin, and LeShawna. Justin and LeShawna threw at Courtney and me, and we dodged. The balls bounced off the back wall and Katie caught them, before tossing them to Duncan and Courtney. Geoff, Duncan, Courtney, and I pulled our arms back and let the balls fly. I imagined for a few seconds I was playing a shooter game, you know, with those circle targeting system things? Anyway, Owen was down. Owen. Was. Down. Every member of our team cheered. Geoff high-fived me, Katie and Courtney hugged, and Duncan looked proud of himself, for obvious reasons. And that's essentially how the match went, LeShawna went down, then Izzy, then Beth, then Justin. Gone, gone, gone, gone. Down, down, down, down.  
"Come on, a little effort out there people." Noah called to his team, only to receive numerous murderous glares from his team. He was being a hypocrite.  
"I think we should do the same thing, all over again." Courtney said. "So Harold, sit this one out too."  
"But I sat the last one out!"  
"It's for the good of the team." Courtney assured him.  
"Do I want to know?" Duncan whispered to me.  
"He's awful. Terrible. Magikarp-brand useless at doge ball." He gave me a look that said, 'uh, what?' And I remembered he probably would never have heard of a Magikarp. "I'll show you later." Geoff pat Harold on the back, before the latter turned and walked back to the bleachers. The next match was another slaughter fest. This was too easy. And fun to watch.  
"This is so unacceptable!" Heather yelled, Tyler walked up to the bleachers, holding his head, and sat down next to me.  
"Where were you?" Courtney asked in a way that reminded me of how an unfairly stern mother would talk.  
"Nowhere!"  
"You were with that blonde Gopher girl, weren't you?"  
"No! Maybe… So?"  
"'So' she could have been getting you to spill all of our weaknesses to her!" Courtney said, motioning to Lindsay, who was talking to her hands. Right, Courtney. Paranoia much? I don't think Lindsay would be capable of that. Don't flatter her.  
Chris decided to intervene.  
"Okay, this is it! The final, tie-breaking game." he said dramatically.  
"Go team, go." Noah said sarcastically, breaking, no, shattering, the mood Chris just set up. I smiled, despite myself. The Bass, myself included, gathered in a huddle.  
"Okay, who's goin in?" Duncan asked.  
"I think it's my turn." Harold said.  
"No way!" Courtney said harshly, "We actually have a chance to win this." Harold nodded, understanding, and went back to the bleachers.  
"Gophers, Bass." Chris started. "Let's send this sample to the lab. And see what you're made of!" Chef blew the whistle, and the chaos began. For some, undoubtedly stupid, reason, my team dropped our strategy, and it became a free-for-all. DJ jumped over an incoming ball. Heather dodged, blows were exchanged. Everybody, with the exception of Noah, played at least once during the game.  
"Knock 'em out. Throw 'em out. Rah rah." Noah said, without a hint of effort. Bridgette stumbled a little, and ended up smacking Noah in the face with her dodge ball. "Ow!" he yelled, falling over into the bleachers. I think he was knocked out cold.  
"You're right." Heather said cooly, "Sports aren't your forte."  
Tyler, holding his stomach, exchanged spots with Sadie, on the bench. She waved at us and everyone, until a ball nailed her back. Duncan and I face palmed, even I know you never turn your back during dodge ball. And the exchanges continued, until even Harold got a turn in.  
"Back of the court, princess." Duncan said flatly. Uh, wasn't that his nickname for Courtney? …I'm not gonna think about that anymore. Next thing I knew, Courtney was smacked in the face with the ball.  
"That's, for the oatmeal." Gwen said. I knew we were down a player, but I couldn't help but smirk. Courtney deserved that. LeShawna cheered.  
"Oooh! You messed, with the wrong white girl!" Geoff, LeShawna and Duncan were taken out. The last one being pelted with three rubber balls of death, before passing out. I couldn't help but wonder how that was possible, before I remembered how tired he was. Cody took a ball to the groin for Gwen (that must've hurt), DJ and Gwen took each other out, and we were down to our last competitor. Harold. His opponent was Owen. Oh dear Lugia, we're gonna drown, rise up from our ashes insignificantly, get hit in the head with four pebbles each, then drown, again.  
"Good night Harold." Harold looked worried for a second, then started to do some more annoying martial art poses. At least he didn't look like a monkey this time, no offence to monkeys everywhere. Owen looked weirded out, as I was, but then began charging none the less. I cannot describe what happened after those balls were thrown. Well, I may be able to, but not in anyway that would do it justice. He dodged them. Harold did. It was… well I already said I couldn't describe it. He even finished with a matrix-like thing! Actually, Noah, who hadn't really been paying much attention, summed it up. He even dropped his book. Literally. As in, the book fell on the floor, as opposed to him just looking up and looking stunned.  
"Whoa."  
"Time out!" Courtney immediately called to Chef, who whistled and allowed it.  
"Man, that boys got dodge!" Duncan said, impressed. "Where'd you learn to do that?" Harold accidentally spit the water he had been gurgling, I assume, on Tyler.  
"Figure skating."  
"Harold, that was awesome." Geoff told the skater, "But dodging isn't enough."  
"He's right," Courtney agreed, "to win this, you either have to throw him out-"  
"Which we all know you can't do." Duncan pointed out.  
"-or catch the ball." And that's where I and my limited psy-powers come in handy. Oh, I'm going to have a heck of a headache. "Can you do it?"  
"Definitely." Harold confirmed, and I had to agree. Bridgette gave him some more water, and DJ slapped him on the back, making him spit it out on Tyler, again.  
"Awesome!" the brick house said, unaware of the fact he half-caused what just happened to Tyler. "Now go catch that ball!"  
Harold took the field and I cleared my mind as best I could. I heard my team cheering for Harold but they faded in my mind so I couldn't hear them. I had to have perfect focus, yes, it was cheating and I hate to do that, but I don't want to lose three in a row either. If you're wondering why I'm psychic, no, I'm not one of those random people you find in stories that are perfect and have lots of friends and powers without trying. Or at least, I hope I'm not. They're too… perfect. My psy-abilites come from getting my brain and DNA scrambled a bit and being able to change into a psychic Pokemon. Okay, that is random, but it has a back-story. Which I'm not going to say yet, Muhahaha. Anyway, they're hard to use in my birth-form, so I really have to concentrate. I felt the ball go soaring through the air and, using all my focus, guided it into Harold's arms. I nearly passed out from what felt like my head cracking in two. It's probably a good thing it didn't actually happen. I grabbed Duncan's arm so I wouldn't topple over, and felt him stand up quickly. Chef whistled and what just happened became clear when Chris shouted it.  
"The Killer Bass wiin!" My entire team cheered, accept for me. I had a splitting headache, which felt almost literal.  
"It's impossible!" Owen shouted. "WHHHHHHY?"  
We carried Harold away, and even Duncan had to congratulate Harold.  
"Nice dodge, skater nerd!" he told him, no malice in his voice at all.  
Had my head not been pounding like a drum during a Japanese festival, I would've heard something that made me worry for Noah.  
Later that night, had I had any, my worries would have been fulfilled. When the Screaming Gopher's came back, they both looked proud of themselves, and Noah was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't help but feel sad about that, he'd been relatively kind to me. The moonlight must make him sentimental.  
Anyway, I had promised to show Duncan what a Magikarp was, and I took him to a secret spot in the woods with a pond in it. I let out my Magikarp for feeding, and showed it to him, making sure to point out how the most it could do at the moment was a very weak tackle.  
"I intend to work on that for him."  
Duncan arched an eyebrow. "Why bother? And why the heck is it so… big?"  
"Well, for one," I told him, "it can become strong enough to kill people if I work with it, I'm not kidding. And two, this is a Magikarp's normal size." My Magikarp swam up to me, and I pat it's head. "So… any particular reason you signed up?" he shrugged.  
"Nah, just didn't have anything better to do. Besides, 100,000 dollars doesn't sound too bad." he chuckled. "You?"  
"Believe it or not, I came here to make friends." I informed him.  
"You might have an easier time if you didn't act like you couldn't talk." I smiled.  
"True. Definitely true. But I guess I want to know what people are like when they don't think someone's gonna berate them. If that's the right word." I told him. "Not to mention people underestimate listening a lot." Duncan shrugged.  
"You a bit of a philosopher?" He asked. I shook my head.  
"Everybody says deep stuff sometimes. What do you think the next challenge is going to be?" I asked, rubbing my still-pained head.  
"I hope it involves motorcycles." I smiled.  
"The only machine I can use. That wouldn't suck."  
"No, no it would not." The punk agreed. I looked up at the sky to see the pink-and-orange that tends to accompany sunsets.  
"We'd better head back, I'm out like a light at ten."  
"Except in the Awake-a-thon." Duncan said with a smirk. I smiled.  
"True."


	6. Chapter 5: to be rewritten

Chapter 6: Not Quite Famous  
I was reading 'Alicia in Mismagius' land' to Bun, my beloved little Buneary, when I heard a, thing, over the intercom, followed by the mean-spirited voice of our resident sadistic host.  
"Alright campers! Enough beauty sleep, time to show us what you're made of! Report to the stage, strait-a-way!" Bun grabbed my pants leg and tugged on it lightly, showing he didn't want me to leave. I picked him up and hugged him. Given the choice, I wouldn't have left, but my team may need me. I returned the 'Cute Shotaro Boy' before hiding the Pokeball. After walking out of the forest (stopping to say hi to the bear, much to his shock) I looked around. Once again, our host didn't bother to tell us where the heck our destination was. Luckily, Geoff saw me and helped me find the stage. I sat next to Duncan, sitting on the far edge of the back row.  
"Are we going to see a musical?" Lindsay asked. "I love musicals. Especially the ones with singing and dancing." The other kind would be called plays. I heard Trent call out for Gwen, giving her a seat. Lindsay blew a kiss to Tyler, love is in the air. Until Heather smacked the blonde ditz with her ponytail. Chris walked on to the stage in his usual, pretty boy way. Spotlight-hogging wus.  
"Welcome to our brand-new, deluxe, state-of-the-art, outdoor amphitheater!" It just looks like the kind of stage you might set up at… well… a camp. Nothing special, but then, this is Chris we're talking about. "Okay, this week's challenge is a summer camp favorite," this week's? We have a challenge every three days, though we were making up for the time missed in the Awake-a-thon, currently. "A talent contest."  
"Yes! Awesome!" Owen yelled immediately.  
"Each team has eight hours to pick the three most talented campers." Chris explained. "These three will represent them in the show tonight. Sing, dance, juggle, anything goes. As long as it's legal." Chris did the, 'I'm watching you' motion towards either me or Duncan. Said boy snapped his fingers in disappointment. I wasn't entirely sure what he could have done that was illegal anyway. How do you show vandalism or theft off? Well, maybe you could spray paint the stage… "You'll be jugged by our resident talent scout, former D.J., V.J., and rap legend, Grand Master Chef!" …what's a V.J.? Vice-Jackalope? No, no, that can't be it. "Who will show his approval via, the Chef-o-meter!" he pointed upwards at nothing. "The team that loses will send one camper home tonight, good luck." After we left, Courtney quickly took charge of the team and became judge. Figures.  
"All right, Annie, you're up first." I arched an (invisible to them) eyebrow and crossed my arms. What did they expect me to do? I can't juggle. "Well?" I don't have any talents, so what should I do? I'm not making a fool of myself in front of these people by trying to unicycle or something. Just skip me, Courtney. Unfortunately, the brunette wouldn't get the message. She continued to pester and bug me to show my non-existent talent. Finally, she seemed to get the message, scolded me for wasting her time, and moved on to Katie and Sadie, who were dancing. I felt anger well up in me. I wasted her time? I didn't bother watching Katie and Sadie's dance, and when I looked up, I saw the twins sitting down in finishing positions, and everyone else on our team looked horrified. I'm guessing they're not in. Tyler was up next. He did a few fancy moves on a yo-yo, before trying the around-the-world move, I think, and tangling himself up. Chris came to check on us.  
"Man, that is weak." Courtney stood up and ran back to the cabin, before coming back with a box. She asked Bridgette to judge, and opened the case revealing a fiddle. Or violin, considering how she was playing. Everyone agreed she had the best talent of anyone who had auditioned so far. Even I did, I sure as heck couldn't play the fiddle. DJ went back to the cabins during his turn and came back with a pink-ish ribbon and in a white leotard. Rhythmic gymnastics? Why does that not surprise me? He was really good in my opinion, and pretty much everyone else on the team would have agreed had I voiced that allowed. I wasn't going to though, for obvious reasons. I honestly think he may have preformed for other people before. The only one who didn't seem to enjoy it was Courtney, who grudgingly agreed to put him in.  
"Fine." the annoyed brunette said. "Sign him up. Next."  
"Me!" Bridgette immediately volunteered. "I can stand on my hands for twenty minutes." She demonstrated by quickly changing the position of her hands and feet. Courtney wasn't convinced.  
"Okay, that would be cute if you were a monkey. I don't think it's quite what we're looking for, next!" she said, as if she were turning down an actress with a bad record. Harold walked past us and I expected him to do some acrobatics, considering the dodge ball game. The nerd in question, however, took a deep breath, and- "Next!" he exhaled sharply, sighing, disappointed he hadn't gotten a shot. Geoff pulled out a skateboard and began to, well, board. He was good. Better then me on a unicycle any day. Not that it made much of a difference, he was the only one Courtney trusted to have a legal talent left. Which meant Duncan wasn't auditioning at all. Geoff ended his skateboarding with a kickflip and caught his board mid-air. Everyone cheered.  
"Well," Bridgette said to Courtney, "I guess it's Geoff, DJ's ribbon thing, and your solo."  
"I'm gonna be on T.V. man!" Geoff immediately yelled. Seriously? Bridgette voiced one of my more positive thoughts aloud.  
"You're… already on T.V. Geoff."  
"Oh yeah." the pink-shirted guy then ran up to a random camera man, or, more specifically, his camera. "Hello out there dudes!" As our team's audition was over, and I couldn't give anyone other then Duncan information anyway, I went over to see the Gophers remaining auditions, making sure to keep myself concealed in the shadows of the forest. They had extra people you know. Izzy was up, dancing and making vocal noises, Owen and Trent seemed to like it, and I thought it was pretty cool, but Heather, who, like Courtney, had taken total control of her team, rejected it strait away.  
"Aw. What's wrong with Izzy's Dance of the Rattlesnake?" Interesting name. Heather didn't bother to answer and ignored her, sending a shiver up my spine. We were essentially doing the same thing. Beth was up next, and she lit two batons on fire. Not trusting her coordination at all, I slunk a bit farther back into the woods, which probably wasn't a good idea. Heather and I were likeminded again.  
"Are you sure this is safe?" She asked when Beth got within a few feet from her. LeShawna, who was sitting next to her, gasped. Lindsay was also sitting with them and the three looked terrified when she got that close.  
"It's okay, I've been practicing." She tossed one of her batons in the air, looked at the other one like she had no idea what to do with it, and threw it up in the air too, quite possibly for the heck of it. More likely because she had no idea what else to do. The second one turned in midair, and came hurdling strait back at her and her team, like a meteor.  
"RUUN!" Owen yelled, and both tables that were on either side of her flipped over to shield the people hiding behind them. Considering they were made out of wood, that probably wouldn't do a lot. Beth herself, jumped behind the table shielding LeShawna, Lindsay, and Heather a split second before it hit her. It left a fricken' hole. A crater-like hole. Everyone peeked there eye's over to see if it was safe.  
"I kind of missed the catching class." Kind of? All the Gophers gathered around the hole. Right, cause that's what your always supposed to do in the movies.  
"Uh, guys." Trent said calmly, pointing to something. "The bush is on fire." I looked over. Yep, the bush was on fire. Suddenly, the door to one of the buildings burst open, reveling Justin in sunglasses and with a fire extinguisher. Dramatic entrance there. He put out the fire, which he didn't have to because it was going to burn itself out without hurting anyone. Probably. Then, simply because he wasn't acting like a big enough ham, randomly ripped his shirt off and began drinking from a water bottle LeShawna gave him. Why this made pretty much all the Gopher girls nearly swoon is completely beyond me.  
"Okay." Heather said, regaining her composure. "I think it's me, Trent, and, Justin." She crossed her arms. "Any objections?" Everyone shook their heads, most of them too distracted by Justin's chest to care anyway. I shook my head myself, I hope Justin goes soon. Lindsay can't be falling for him if she's in a relationship with Tyler, not to mention how pretty much everyone, about half, of the others had their brains reduced to mush whenever he was around. I went back into the woods to take care of my charge, the adorable Bun. Though we stayed somewhat near the camp, unfortunately, Bun hates Purebloods even more than I do. And for good reason. Bun's parents, my beloved Lucario and Lopunny, my closest Pokemon and friends, were murdered in cold blood by Purebloods. Right in front of us. Heck, Lucario took the shot for me, and Lopunny was physically putting herself between the Pureblood's gun and Bun. Dark Man had led the attack. I had to stop Bun from freezing them all solid with Ice Beam six times before he started to ignore them. After a while of playing chase, he pointed over at the camp, and I saw Gwen walking back to the Gopher cabin. She looked down at the hole as I picked Bun up.  
"I won't even ask." She said, and jumped over the hole, followed closely by Cody, her stalker-with-a-crush. Sort of.  
"Who is she?" Bun asked in his Buneary language.  
"She's Gwen. She's a loner and a Goth, that's someone who likes darker stuff, like me." I told him in English.  
"Even crime?"  
"Well, your mileage may vary on that one."  
"Loook," I heard Heather say, "The first hook-up of the season." The Queen-Bee pointed at Gwen and Cody, the latter holding the door for the former. Bun gave me a questioning look. I told him I'd tell him later. Gwen gave Heather a nasty glare, before smiling.  
"Oh yeah, we're going at it big time." She said sarcastically. "I need a swim just to cool off." She then slammed the door. Cody tried to peek, so I covered the inside of the window, literally, the direct middle, with a shadow. Gwen slammed the door open, smacking Cody into the wall. Bun laughed.  
"Gwen, wait up!" Trent said, putting his guitar he had been playing down. "I'll come with you."  
"Sure." She said happily, then remembered she was supposed to be a major loner with no feelings towards anyone. "I mean, whatever." I took Bun and left at that point. We headed down to the pond, and played a bunch of children's games. I liked them, and Bun was the equivalent of a five-year old human, though he had only been alive a year. Eventually Duncan found us, I introduced him to Bun, who I had to keep from using Bounce against the teen, and he told me I had to meet up with the other Bass at the stage. I nodded and told him I'd be a minute. He left, I recalled Bun, and followed the bad boy. After we had gotten to the stage, Courtney looked ticked off. Apparently, we were 'late'. Though considering the show didn't start for about an hour, I wasn't sure what we were late for. After about five minutes of Geoff checking his wheels and Courtney practicing, I was pretty bored. Luckily, DJ had a pack of cards, and he, Duncan and I started playing Go Fish. Harold and Bridgette were just standing around, but they didn't seem to mind. I had won all six games before somebody spoke, other than '(name) do you have any (card number/kings/queens/jacks)' and 'Go Fish'.  
"So, can you really stand on your hands for twenty minutes?" Geoff asked his crush.  
"Wanna bet that I can't?" the blonde surfer replied, pulling out a chocolate bar.  
"Oh, you're on!"  
"I'll take a piece of that action." Harold joined in.  
"Yeah, that's like virtually impossible." DJ joined in as well. Don't be a doubter, DJ, you never know when it'll come back to bite you. Heck, a majority of my life, if not all of it, is impossible.  
"Anty up." Bridgette replied. The Go Fish game was officially over, everybody, well, almost everybody bet against Bridgette. Courtney was off in her own little world and I rarely gamble. Bridgette watched all that she was going to win. "Okay, twenty minutes starting… now!" she flipped over and began walked to balance herself. Unfortunately, her foot got caught on a rope, and she unintentionally pulled it loose. Courtney came back to us and looked up, five seconds before a stage light plowed down on her. "Oh crap!"  
Luckily, it missed hitting her directly, and she only got some of the broken pieces wedged in her head a bit. That's not good, but it's not nearly as bad as what happened to her fiddle. Thwang. DJ volunteered to take Courtney to the hospital wing, then we all sort of split up. Mainly out of worry, but I wasn't too concerned. She was hard headed, thick-skulled, headstrong, okay, okay, I'll stop. Though the second one might not be right. Anyway, Bridgette and Geoff went back to the Bass cabin, the latter to comfort the former, Harold simply stayed on the stage looking around like an idiot, and Duncan and I went back to the woods. I have no clue where the Wonder Twins are and, personally, I don't really care. We began talking about our families a bit.  
"Yeah, my family is made up entirely of cops, believe it or not." Duncan told me. I arched an impossible to see eyebrow.  
"You're kidding." I said.  
"Nope." He grinned wickedly. "You could say I'm the rebel of the family. What's your family like?" I tensed a bit.  
"Lazy. All they do is sleep all day. Except my dad." I half-lied.  
"Really? What's he do?"  
"Not much. He's a bit of a politician, or he was, back in Rio." I told my Mohawked friend.  
"You've been to Rio? The place with the bikini dancers?" I anime-fell.  
"That's not what they're called. I use to live there." He smirked. "No, I'm not going to do one of the dances for you." Suddenly, we heard someone sob loudly, someone who sounded a lot like Courtney.  
"We'd better head back." Duncan said.  
"Right behind you."

"Dude, what happened?" Duncan asked Geoff, who was looking at a blank space on the stage. The boy in pink sighed.  
"Bridge tried to apologize to Courtney. She's wasn't very forgiving." I shook my head, Bridgette wasn't a fool, she knew Courtney was like that. Why'd she try? Duncan and I were likeminded.  
"Why even try? We all know how Princess is."  
"She couldn't live with herself otherwise, apparently." Geoff said with a shrug. I had enough of this soap opera for today, so I decided to walk to the dock. Once I was near, though, I saw Gwen and Trent. Right, they were headed here. My matchmaker instinct took over my dislike of Trent for being a Pureblood, hey, I liked Gwen and the two obviously liked each other. I crammed my ears to hear, more out of cupid hints then curiosity, for once.  
"Sometimes I just need to get away from everyone here, y'know? I mean it's like they're all driving me crazy! Well…" she looked at Trent, and then looked away, "Almost all of them." Seems as though their relationship is progressing nice-  
"CANNONBALL!" Owen yelled as the dock rumbled under his weight, then jumped into the water, splashing Gwen. Said girl stood up quickly.  
"UGH! I hate this place!" she snarled before stalking away. I glared pointedly at Owen, come on guys, help a girl out! Trent looked angrily at the boys who ruined his moment.  
"Nice going guys."  
"Yeah," Owen said, turning to Cody, "Nice going." I beamed him with a stick and left. Honestly, Owen's either an idiot, mean-spirited, or both. Though I'd prefer to think the first one. Eventually, I walked to the stage, and sat next to, who else, but Duncan. Finally, Chris walked onto the stage.  
"Iiiiit's the TDI talent extravaganza!" he said as though it we're something more impressive then your garden-variety school talent show. "Welcome to the very first Camp Wawanakwa talent contest." See? What did I just say? "Where six campers will showcase their mad skills, and desperately try not to humiliate themselves." Of course, you couldn't have stuck with the nicer first part. No, too kind for Chris Mclean. "First up, for the Screaming Gophers, is Justin." I turned to Duncan and whispered.  
"Do I have to watch this, or will our team automatically lose?"  
"You don't want to watch?" he whispered back, surprised.  
"Ugh, no. I don't understand what every other girl sees in him."  
"You sure you're a chick?" He joked. I rolled his eyes even though he couldn't see it.  
"I'm pretty sure I was born without male bits, so yes." I heard music start up and assumed that Justin was dancing. "Pretty-boy's dancing, isn't he?"  
Duncan looked at the display I didn't care for, eyes squited slightly.  
"I wouldn't… call it that exactly. I don't know what that is."  
"Then I probably don't want to know what it is." Just as I finished, I heard a splash of water. "Uh, what?"  
"Some water just fell on Justin." Duncan said with a shrug.  
"I don't even want to know why." I said.  
"Okay," Chris said to Justin. Assuming he was finished, I looked back at Justin. Soaking wet, yep. "I don't know what that was, but daaaang, you're go some moves dude!" Everyone on the Gophers cheered. Including and especially Izzy which was odd because I could have sworn she'd called him an evil liar yesterday. "First up for the Killer Bass, make some noise for the big guy, DJ!" I clapped. The animal-lover started off pretty well, until he got his foot caught in the ribbon. I winced. I wouldn't doubt Courtney voting him out if we lost, simply because of that accident. "Dainty, and yet masculine." Chris said, walking on-stage. "Let's see what Grandmaster Chef thinks." Beat. "Not much." How is he even sure? "So, with two down and four acts to go. It's the Screaming Gophers screaming ahead. Next on deck, Trent. Take it away my bro." Trent walked out carrying a stool and his guitar.  
"This one goes out to someone special here at camp."  
"Gwen." I whispered to Duncan.  
"What was your first clue, genius?" I rolled my eyes then focused on Trent's song.  
"They say we've only got one summer  
Well I say that's really a bummer  
But we'll swim in the sun  
And have lots of fun  
It'll just be the two of us  
Nothing to do, just hang  
So let me say only this:  
Stick around, for just one kiss."  
I smiled and clapped politely for him. Duncan arched his eye- erm, unibrow.  
"You know he's on the other team, right?" I elbowed him lightly.  
"I'm well aware. But I certainly wouldn't have the guts to do that. Besides, I like his singing." I told him. I looked back to see Trent waving at who I assume to be Gwen, and Chris pushed him off stage.  
"Three down and three to go and the Killer Bass are totally sucking so far." Chris said. "Let's hear it for Bridgette!" Bridgette hand-walked onto the stage, and there was an ominous air. Then she burped. Then she burped again and which turned into a hurl mid time. There was a mix of disgusted reactions. Then, to make things worse, Bridgette projectile vomited and hit Owen.  
"I'm hit! I'm hit!" Bridgette then projectile vomited on the Wonder Twins, causing Katie to stand up shrieking before barfing on Sadie. She puked again hitting LeShawna and Izzy. Then began to slip in her own puke (I shuddered slightly) and, somehow defying science, fell into Tyler's arms. The boy was sitting a few yards away, so how that happened I'm not sure. Lindsay was over in a second.  
"Hey, puke on your own boyfriend!" Heather glared at her from on stage.  
"On your own what Lindsay?"  
"I didn't say boyfriend."  
"Oh dear." I whispered to Duncan. "I don't think we'll get a very good score." Chris tip-toed on the stage, trying to avoid the puddles of puke.  
"Clean up on aisles three, four, five, and six! In the meantime, we'll take a short break to hose the joint down. Bring her in boys!" Just as Chris called this two interns, twins it looked like, came in carrying what looked like a fireman's hose, you can probably guess what happened next. As Chris, Chef, and the two interns tried desperately to control the hose, most of the campers went to take showers.  
After a shower-filled half an hour, Chris called us all back to the stage. It was finally clean. "Welcome back to the TDI Talent Extravaganza! Welcome back. Okay, so in a strange turn of events, Bridgette's chunk blowing fest registered two thumbs up by Grandmaster Chef." Wait, what? Throwing up isn't a talent I've ever heard about, but hey, I'll take it. The score, not the talent. "But, it's not enough to pull ahead of the Screaming Gophers who hold the lead with Trent's love song. So, without further delay, here she is for the leaders, Heather." Heather walked on stage in her ballet outfit, but simply sat down on a stool.  
"Originally," she said in a way that I'm sure meant nothing good was going to happen, "I was going to dance for you. But instead, I want to celebrate team spirit," she held up a green book, "with a collaboration." I looked over at the Gopher's and saw Gwen's eyes go wide. No, that isn't… "So, with words by Gwen, performance by me, enjoy." That was, it was Gwen's diary, wasn't it? Heather cleared her voice and started. " 'Okay, so I'm trying to ignore him, but he's just so cute. If they had custom-ordered a guy to be a distraction for me here, it would have been McHottie.' " She paused, so we could hear the collective gasps from the audience. " 'We just totally connect, he's pretty much the only one I can relate to on the island, and I know it's a cliché, but I love guys who play guitar.' " I noticed Gwen run off, clearly humiliated. I clenched my fists, I like to think of Gwen as my friend. "Thank you." I glared at her, though she couldn't see it. While that was good news for Trent and Gwen's budding romance, I felt angry as heck toward Heather. I'm going to find a car tire and bounce it off her head a few times if I can. Chris walked onto the stage as Heather walked off.  
"Well then, it's down to the final act of the night. Can Geoff and his rad stunts turn it around? I seriously doubt it. Let's find out!" Just then their was an ominous crack from back stage, Duncan and I looked at each other, both of us thinking the same thing. That could not have been good. I saw Bridgette and Courtney peak their heads out from behind the curtain. I elbowed Duncan slightly and pointed to them, so they'd know we'd noticed. They pointed to Harold, then made a 'come over hear gesture'. Duncan and I looked at each other before Duncan pointed them out to him. After he went backstage, he was then pushed onto stage, with a microphone. "Okay." Chris said, looking at him. "Here's Harold doing, whatever he's doing." Chris walked offstage, and Harold began making weird, but rhythmic, noises.  
"What is he doing?" I whispered to Duncan.  
"Beat boxing." After Harold finished, the crowd went wild. Chris walked on, applauding for Harold.  
"Wicked beat boxing dude! Check it out, Grandmaster Chef has declared his winner. Even though they held the lead, the Screaming Gopher's have been trampled by the Killer Bass!" More cheers. Hey, I disliked Harold as much as the next guy, but I was happy we won all the same. Buh bye Heather. I smiled, as we cheered and headed back toward our cabin.  
"Dude, don't tell me you learned that at figure skating!" Geoff said to Harold.  
"Nope. My uncle taught me. It is one of my many mad skills." I rolled my eyes, before walking away.  
"Hey Annie, where are you going?" Duncan, who was standing at the door, asked.  
"To find a car tire, if I can. Which I doubt, but hey." He arched his unibrow.  
"Why?"  
"I want to hit Heather with one a couple times before she leaves tonight." He shrugged.  
"Guess I can't argue with that."  
Later, I was just about to give up. It was hard to find a car tire anywhere on this island. Eventually, I came to the Gopher's Marshmallow Ceremony. I decided to watch, I'd get to see Heather throw a fit.  
"Kudos to you all for an incredible night of entertainment." Chris said, everyone but Heather and Justin were holding marshmallows. I was hoping Heather would go home, but I'd settle for either one. "Music, drama, barfing." He then did the routine, 'One marshmallow left, whoever doesn't get it has to leave' thing. "Justin, reminded us all that looks matter a lot. And Heather, you're full of surprises. But reading another chick's diary out loud to the whole world, man that is whack! No kidding, that's really messed up dude." Heather put up her hand.  
"Oh please, just give me my marshmallow already." she said. Chris looked at Justin.  
"Justin, I personally think this is very wrong. But tonight," No way, "hotness just wasn't enough. The last marshmallow goes to, Heather." He said her name as though it pained him to say it. Few people didn't look upset. But Gwen looked downright furious. "Time to catch the boat of losers, bra."  
"Later bra." Heather said with a wave, before tossing the marshmallow in her mouth. As much as I wanted Heather to leave, I couldn't help but smile as Justin, completely crestfallen, walked away.  
Confessional  
Gwen: If that evil little cow thinks she's getting away with this, she has another thing coming.  
Confessional over  
Later that night, I was laying in my tree, cursing myself for not being able to find a car tire, when a scream brought me out of my thoughts. I bolted upright and saw Heather run out of her cabin, covered in red ants. I grinned. Dance, Heather, dance! Excellent work Gwen, sweet dreams. I watched Heather dancing around all night, it was great fun.


	7. Chapter 6: to be rewritten

Chapter 7 - The Sucky Outdoors  
All of us, me, my team, and the Gophers, were gathered at the campfire pit so Chris could tell us today's challenge. I don't think the others even had breakfast.  
"Campers, today's challenge will test your outdoor survival skills." the ham told us. "I'm not gonna lie to you; some of you might not come back alive." LeGasp! "Just joking." I rolled my eyes. Him and lying? I never would have guessed. "All you have to do is spend one night in the woods." Eh? Did he just say… what I think he said? I was shaking because of it. "Everything you need is at your teams campsite in the forest. You just have to find it." Chris took out two maps and tossed on to Duncan and the other to Heather, followed by a pair of compasses. I didn't' care at the moment, I was too excited! I loved the outdoors! (Duh). "Oh, and watch out for bears. Lost a couple of interns in pre-production." Courtney stood up and snatched the map from Duncan. "First team back for breakfast wins invisibility." Chris blew on his air horn, needlessly. "Well, off you go."  
"Did he say there are bears up in here?" LeShawna asked without missing a beat. Oh, bears aren't so bad LaShawna, try spending a night camping in a forest crawling with overprotective bears that can fire laser beams out of their mouths. And yes, I am talking about Ursaring.  
"I had a little encounter with a bear once." I had a little encounter with an Ursaring at least twenty times. "Let's just say his head looks real nice up on my mantel." Let's just say be both got away real fine.  
"Oh!" Izzy started to say, "This one time, I saw a bear eating our garbage. He had old spaghetti noodles hanging from his big, huge-" Hello, this is Department of Redundancy Department. "teeth, and it looked like blood and guts."  
"Bleh." Lindsay said, disgusted.  
"It was so gross! And we thought he was eating the neighbors cat Simba, but it turned out he was just lost for a week." Pause, pause, pause… "Uh, you didn't have spaghetti did you?" Lindsay shook her head. Wait a Fire Blast-ing minute. Where the heck did they get the option for spaghetti? "Good, let's go!" And with that, the teams left. It was a pretty long walk, all things considered, but I needed a decent hike anyways. When we finally got to our campsite, we noticed one thing in particular, no food. Well, that's where I come in handy for once, I guess. I jumped into the trees unnoticed, and looked around for familiar fruits. Eventually I found bananas and coconuts, how, I'll never know. But they were bananas and coconuts. I also caught some bugs, picked some mushrooms I recognized to be edible (double, triple, and quadruple checking to make sure) and bartered with Bear for some fish (in Ursaring form, so I could understand him at least a little). As I was heading back (in human form), I heard Owen yell "RRAH! I'M A BEAR!" and I shook my head. At least it would scare them off. Hopefully. I also passed what looked like either a pack of sleeping coyotes or sleeping wolves, but I wasn't going to check. Given the surroundings, they were probably wolves. As I walked back into our campsite I saw a small fire and tent. Oh boy. As I stepped back into our clearing I heard Courtney say exasperated. "You couldn't find any food?" I looked over and saw him holding a rabbit close to his chest. A pet? "I guess we're eating grubs and berries for dinner." Courtney assessed, not noticing me. I kicked a pebble at her head. "Ow! What was that-" She stopped and blanked when she saw my arms. "Then again, maybe we won't." She picked a banana out of the group.  
"Where'd you get bananas?" Harold asked. I shrugged. I went over the fire and brought two of my flints out of my backpack, and started to use them to start a fire. I live outdoors and such, so I'm quite skilled at this kind of thing. Of course, if anyone else had the kind of experience I had, they'd probably be three times more skilled. I noticed the Wonder Twins weren't here. Good, they aught to have a chance to try and fend for themselves. Suddenly I was interrupted by DJ's shout, which sounded more like a squeal of fear.  
"There are bugs in the food!" I rolled my eyes. Those would be the dead bugs to eat. To demonstrate, I picked up a few, quickly obtained a hot rock from the fire (without touching it directly) and cooked the bug slightly. Don't get me wrong, you can eat most bugs without cooking them, but it just seems more sanitary to fry them first. I ate the grasshopper, which seemed to sicken my team. Pansies. Eventually, they seemed to get used to it and a few brave souls tried the insects as well. Duncan first, naturally. Then Courtney, who wouldn't be outdone by him. Harold was next, surprisingly. First, though, he went on a spiel about how six-legged insects (are there any other kind?) were generally pack with protein and other stuff I already knew. Geoff tried some after him, then Tyler. Bridgette and DJ, on the other hand, refused point blank to try the bugs. Oh well, there were lots of alternatives. After the sun went down, we all gathered around the fire. The others talked, I listened to them and the forest's sounds. It's music, if you will, and stared at the fire. Suddenly, Bridgette jumped.  
"Be cool," DJ told her, cuddling Bunny (as he had named it), "It's just an owl." Ah, that was it.  
"Sorry, I just get really freaked out in the forest."  
"This reminds me of this really scary story I heard once." Duncan told us.  
"Awesome. Tell it man." Geoff asked him. I smiled. I scary story would be perfect. Ghost stories are pretty much campfire traditions.  
"Are you sure?" Duncan asked, "Because the story I'm thinking of is pretty hard-core." I didn't care, I've seen the darker side of the Pokemon's world and lived in it for years. Besides, the scarier the story the better it is in my opinion. Courtney rolled her eyes.  
"Oooh. We're so scared." She said sarcastically. Kill joy.  
"All right," Duncan agreed. "But don't say I didn't warn you. One night, a lot like this one…"  
It was actually a high-octane version of a story I knew personally. Along with being scarier, it had several details changed. The one I know (but not the one Duncan told exactly) went somewhat like this:  
A girl and a guy (let's call them Alice and Bob) had a planned date and set up for it like normal. After Alice met Bob he drove them to a deserted spot to watch the sunset, but it was weird. There were no animals and it was unnaturally quiet. Alice noticed this, but Bob didn't. Alice kept telling Bob this, but he wouldn't listen. Eventually, Bob turned on the radio so the two of them could listen to some music together (and calm Alice down). After a few minutes, however, they were interrupted by a radio broadcast warning everyone that a deranged murderer had escaped from a nearby prison. Bob simply turned off the radio, but Alice was scared. She pointed out how close the prison was, but Bob told her he would try to get away from the city. Eventually, Alice pestered Bob into going home, and as she got out, well, I'll just go into Duncan's version from here.  
"She opened the door and screamed. Because there, hanging from the door handle, was the bloody hook. They say that this killer is still alive, wandering these very woods. He could be just about anywhere, really. Maybe even right…" Oh, I know what- "HERE!" Duncan pulled out a hook from behind his back, causing nearly everyone to scream and jump behind DJ. I had trouble not laughing, that was perfect! Duncan, however, did not have that restraint. Mainly because he didn't need it.  
"Duncan!" Courtney yelled as Harold and Geoff glared at me, clearly having noticed that I was shaking with laughter and had my hands over my mouth to contain it. "That was so NOT funny!"  
"Ha! Oh yes it was!" Duncan said as I nodded vigorously, earning more glares. "I just wish it was all on camera… oh wait, it is!"  
"You are so vile, do your parents even like you?" I glared at her for that comment. My eyes were hidden, but I was glaring so very hard… I wouldn't stoop to parent insults, not even towards Heather. Duncan, however, seemed to remain un-phased.  
"I don't know Jummpy-McChicken, I haven't asked them lately." A wolf, probably one I saw earlier, howled. Courtney leapt strait into Duncan's arms, surprising him momentarily. Geoff gave him a thumbs up. When she realized where she was, however, she stood back up and pushed him down, hard. Eventually, we all went into the tent. Some of us feeling more awkward then others, Duncan and I, for example, didn't seem to have a problem sleeping co-ed. Others, like Courtney, had a lot of problem with it. Mainly because of Duncan, in her case. Duncan and I were also the only ones the fell asleep easily. Until the others began screaming, and I jerked awake and looked around quickly. The only thing I could see around was the tent and Bridgette's silhouette. With a bat on her head. Suddenly, the tent was on fire. We were surrounded by flame. I felt myself go numb, was my nightmare…? Just as suddenly as the flames popped up, the entire tent turned to ash. If it weren't for the fact that little in my life is guided by them, I'd probably wonder where the laws of science were. Everyone glared at Bridgette, assuming she'd just burnt the tent down. Which makes about as much sense as my life. I simply looked around, glad to no longer be surrounded by suffocating flames.  
"Great. That's just great, Bridgette." Courtney said in annoyance. "Now, we have nowhere to sleep!" She yelled.  
"Yo, drama queen," Duncan intervened before Courtney murdered Bridgette. When'd he wake up? "relax. It's cool." It was, really. We'd just sleep under the stars. Not like it was that different. We could even sleep around the fire, to keep us warm. Courtney, however, clearly didn't think of this.  
" 'Cool'? 'It's cool'? Things could not possibly get worse!" She yelled. Dang it, don't you know you never say that? Cue the waterworks… So much for my idea of sleeping around a fire. As I predicted, and honestly, who didn't see it coming, a single drop of water landed on Courtney's head. Followed by a downpour. Oh, social bunny's saggy ears, I hate Courtney sometimes. DJ used the banana leaf I brought as a plate/basket and covered everyone but Harold and Tyler, and I managed to use a few huge leaves myself to make a one-person canopy as I slept in the trees. It wasn't the best but, meh, the rain didn't bother me much. When you live outdoors 90 to 100% of the time, this stuff doesn't bother you much.  
I was the first person awake, again. Which was good. I noticed a couple people who were sleeping in cuter positions then others, case 'n point: Geoff and Bridgette and Duncan and Courtney. Bridgette was sleeping on Geoff's lap and he had his hat over his face, leaning up against DJ. Courtney and Duncan were in a similar position, with a few changes considering Duncan was lying flat on the ground.  
"Morning, Sunshine." I heard Duncan say, and, for a split second, thought he was talking to me. At least, until I heard Courtney.  
"Ohmygosh, ew." ENGLISH! Or French, or Portuguese, or any human language! Courtney jumped up. "You were cuddling me!" She accused of Duncan. I failed to see the little-used logic in that.  
"I was calmly lying on my back trying to catch a few Z's. You were snuggling up to me." He pointed out calmly. You know, the thing is, everyone knows that Bridgette likes Geoff, just a little. Does that mean Courtney-  
"You are such and ogre."  
"I've been called worse." Duncan said, lying back down.  
"Ugh!" She squel/screamed in annoyance, and I almost laughed when I realized DJ had been watching the entire thing with me.  
Confessional:  
Courtney: Okay, I just want to say, for the record, that I was totally asleep and therefore unconscious at the time of the 'alleged cuddling' with said Neanderthal. So, essentially it was like it never happened.  
Confessional over  
As soon as everyone was up (Courtney and I woke everyone up) and stretched, we raced back, using the map and arrived first.  
"We're the first ones back!" Courtney shouted, and almost immediately I heard Heather behind her.  
"No! They beat us here!" She turned around furious to Owen and Izzy in a bear costume (I'm sure it makes sense to them). The Gophers looked tired. "This is all your fault!" She yelled at Owen, pushing him to the ground.  
"Ah-ah-ah-ah, not so fast, Gopherinos." Chris interjected. I hadn't missed his face. Though I felt bad for how tired Gwen looked. "It seems the Killer Bass are missing a few fish." It took a second before it clicked. The Wonder Twins! Dang it, I totally forgot. Goodbye Wawanakwa.  
"Oh, you mean Katie and Sadie?" Courtney asked. "I'm pretty sure they got eaten by wolves last night. Duncan nodded.  
"Darn shame." And then, just because fate hates me, Katie and Sadie came running out of the woods.  
"We made it!" Katie said, happily.  
"We're safe!" Sadie added. I'd rethink that. "Oh my gosh, guys, we got totally lost and then got in this massive fight." Good.  
"And there was this huge bear and he was all, 'Rawr, your in my crib, so get out!'"  
"And we had to run and it was like, sooo scary."  
"Oh, Sadie, I'm so sorry I said I was prettier then you."  
"And I'm so sorry I brought up the snack shack." Man, this is like a bad soap opera.  
"And I'm sorry I said your butt was too big to fit in the bus seats." Pause.  
"You did?" Awkward pause.  
"Um… well not to your face." Awkwarder pause.  
"Oh, who cares! We're safe! And you're my best friend and I love you!"  
"Oh, I love you too!" Courtney cleared her throught.  
"Are you two done your little love fest?" They nodded. "Good. Because, thanks to you, we just lost the challenge!"  
"Alright, Killer Bass, one of your fishy butts is going home!" Yeah right. I know you now. I doubt those boats actually take us home. And where, exactly, would they take me? I don't exactly have one. "Gophers, your going on an all-expense-paid trip to…" Beautiful, tropical Hawaii? "The Tuck shop!" …No clue what that is. But from the teams' reaction, it must have been something. Eh, I'll just swipe something later. Pretty much everyone on my team gasped and glared and The Wonder Twins. Who immediately dropped their (Creepy) smiles. My choice was easy. Sadie. She seemed less intelligent, and I liked Katie a smig more.  
Later at the campfire, again, the lack of sleep caught up with pretty much everyone.  
"You've all cast your votes." Chris told us. Again. "The camper who does not receive a marshmallow must immediately hit the dock of shame, grab the boat of losers, and get the heck out of here! And, you can't come back. Ever." We know, Chris. We know. "Now," Oooooh, a twist? "I can see you're all tied so tonight, I'll just throw them to you. Savvy? Annie." I was in utter shock, not only did I get the first marshmallow, but I was half-sure I'd be going home. I mean, I forgot the Wonder Twins. "Courtney." Chris continued as if nothing happened. The brunette smiled. "Duncan." That wiped the smile off her face. Quickly. "Bridgette. DJ. Harold." It smacked him in the face. I smirked. "Geoff." He caught it. In his HAT. That was… I don't know the word, exactly, but it's a positive word. Funny or cool, maybe. "Tyler." That left two girls. "Ladies." Chris said to the Wonder Twins. "This is the final marshmallow the evening." Tension pause. "Sadie!" Dang it! Sadie didn't bother to catch hers.  
"No! Why Katie! Why her?" I second that!  
"It's so unfair." Katie said, practically crying.  
"I so can't do this! I've never been anywhere without Katie!" I doubt you were born together. Or at the exact same time. "We have to be together or I'll totally die!" That wouldn't shock me. At all. Katie grabbed Sadie.  
"Sadie, listen to me. You can do this. You are strong, and beautiful, and, like, maybe even smarter then me. And plus, you're like the funnest girl I know!" Sadie began to tear up. "You have to do it for both of us!" Most of us, including Cody for some reason, walked Sadie and Katie to the dock.  
"I miss you already!"  
"I miss you more!"  
"No, I miss you more!" Oh dear Lugia…  
"No way, I totally miss you more!"  
"I miss you infinitely more, BYE!" Arcine, my best friend, immediately came to mind. I almost kicked Sadie at that moment. It's not like they're never going to see each other again. Not like losing each other, temporarily, meant they had no one left… like me. But no, I'm not alone. Not anymore. I have Duncan, and Gwen, and I've always had Bun and Ambi. And I'm not going to lose them. I'd rather die first.


	8. Chapter 7: to be rewritten

Chapter 8: Phobia Factor  
After sitting at the fire and staring at if for a while, I became aware that Courtney and Duncan had rejoined us. When did they leave.  
"Hey Annie," Duncan said, "You have anymore Grasshoppers?" I withheld a chuckle, but before I could reply (in any way), I heard sobbing and turned to see Bridgette leading Sadie back. Sadie was holding onto a piece of the docks. Dang, she has a strong grip.  
"It was a long goodbye." Bridgette explained. Clearly.  
"What do you guys want?" Courtney asked. I turned around to see the Gophers. "Come by to rub it in?" Why is she acting so nasty?  
"We got some extra dessert after our Tuck Shop party, thought you might want some." Trent explained.  
"So what, you're just being… nice?" Courtney accused.  
"Okay," Gwen said, looking slightly exasperated. "Owen stank up our cabin and we need some time to air out." As if (and probably) on cue, Owen farted.  
"Ew, dude." Trent, who was, unfortunately, standing next to the bag of hot air, said in disgust. Beth came over and offered some jell-o to Courtney.  
"No! I mean, no thanks, I'm good." she said, way too quickly.  
"What, are you on a diet or something?" Duncan asked.  
"No!" Courtney responded, way too quickly again. "I just don't like green jelly, okay?" I thought it was jell-o. Beth came over to offer some to DJ and Duncan, but before the latter could say anything, the former screamed and knocked it out of her hands. And across the campfire pit.  
"SNNNAKKE!" Cody, whom the jell-o had been knocked in front of, bent down and picked out the offending item.  
"Chill dude, it's just a gummy worm."  
"Sorry for trippen'." DJ immediately apologized. "Snakes just freak me out." I can understand how a snake would freak someone out. Especially after that one fast-food commercial, 'Snake Man' kind of thing. Seriously, why would that encourage ANYONE to eat a hamburger? I saw it in passing once. Never again. Never again! Tyler put his arm around DJ.  
"I feel you. Chickens give me the creeps dude." I blinked once.  
"You're afraid of chickens?" Gwen asked, voicing my thoughts. Duncan chuckled.  
"Wow, that's, that's really lame man." I'd understand if he was like, a hamster or something else much smaller then them. Or if he was talking about something like the Torchic family, who breath fire and are natural martial artists. But normal, run-o-the-mill chickens?  
Confessional  
Gwen: So suddenly everyone's having this big share-fest by the fire. Like Beth went on-and-on about how her mortal fear is being covered by bugs. Harold's afraid of ninjas. Even Heather admitted she's afraid of Sumo Wrestlers!  
Confessional Over  
"Oh, I totally understand what it's like having a weird fear Tyler." Beth piped up, hooking our interest.  
"Oh? Do go on." Courtney said.  
"Well, everybody always asks me the same thing after I tell them, but my biggest, hugest, mortal fear is to be covered by bugs." She told us.  
"Just covered by bugs? Why not bugs in general?" DJ asked.  
"See, that's what everybody asks. One bug on it's own isn't scary. But when it's enough to cover you up…" She trailed off, and several people shuddered.  
"Yeah, I guess I understand that." Harold said. "My greatest fear, though, has got to be ninjas!"  
"Didn't ninja's die out years ago?" LeShawna asked with a raised brow.  
"No, that's just what they want you to think!" Harold said, sure of himself. I raised my brow, but then remembered the Nincada and Scyther families and decided to let the matter rest. "Heather, what about you?" Heather tensed a bit, before sighing.  
"Alright, it's… sumos. They're just so… fat and aggressive. Don't judge me." She said, relatively quickly. I made a mental note about that and the Makuhita family, and almost missed Trent asking Gwen's.  
"What's my worst fear? I guess… being buried alive." She admitted.  
"Walking through a mine field…" Lindsay said. "In heels!" Ugh, understood. It's impossible to walk in those things.  
"Flying man," Owen said without missing a beat. "That's some crazy stuff." Like Iz-  
"Ha. I would never go up in a plane. Never." The girl said.  
"I'm scared a' hail." Geoff said, with bags on his eyes. "It's small, but, deadly dude."  
"Being left alone in the woods." Bridgette said without missing a beat. It's a good thing she had us with her last challenge, then. I love the woods, myself. So long as I don't meet a protective Ursaring or pack of Mightyena or Houndoom. Even then, I know lots of wild Pokemon. So if I know them, it's fine.  
"Bad haircuts!" Sadie cried. Oh yeah that-  
"Oh, okay, I change mine. That is so much scarier then a mine field!" Lindsay said. Any respect I just developed for her just got flushed down the can. Owen's face was essentially the same as my own. Only, you know, a different shape. And color. I was tan, he was not. And our hair is different too- okay, I'm getting off topic.  
"Having to defuse a time bomb under pressure." Cody said after thinking for a bit. I can honestly understand that.  
"I'm not really afraid of anything." Courtney announced proudly. Right. Totally believe that. And if you believe what I just thought wasn't sarcasm, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you. Duncan and I were in the same mind.  
"Baloney." He coughed. You know, baloney really has a bad rep.  
"Oh really, well what exactly is your phobia, Mr. Know-it-all?" Courtney snapped back at him. His eyes widened and I know exactly what he was thinking. 'Crud, shouldn't have done that.' Everybody looked at him, except myself. I wasn't going to pressure him into saying something he didn't want to. I didn't understand why everyone was telling people they were competing with their worst fears. If I got angry enough, I might set the corresponding Pokemon on them. I can certainly see that happening to Heather. Duncan sighed.  
"C-Celine Dionne music store standees." He said quickly.  
"Ex-queese me?" Cody mocked, putting his hand to his ear. "I didn't quite get that."  
"Dude," Trent said, "did you just say 'Celine Dionne music store standees'? Duncan put his hands over his face, complete with peering out of a crack in his figures. Poor guy.  
"Oooh, I love Celine Dionne!" Lindsay squealed before blanking. "What's a standee?"  
"You know, that cardboard cutout thing that stands in the music store." Trent explained.  
"Don't say it, dude!" Duncan snapped at him, but Trent continued anyway.  
"Kind of like a life-sized but flat Celine."  
"So if we had a cardboard standee right now…" Courtney teased.  
"Shut up!" Duncan yelled. He was kind enough to tell you his embarrassing fear, and your teasing him about it? I understand his reaction. "What about you guys?"  
"Okay well, I hate mimes. Like a lot." Trent told us. Except in the case of the Mr. Mime family, I understand. Completely. And totally. They're obnoxious and freaky as heck. And they never, speak, at all! I never want to come across an evil mime. Ever. "Alright Courtney, you're afraid of something. Spit it out." Everybody but I have, and I'm waiting for someone to ask. I looked around and spotted a stick, I went over to pick it up, and when I came back over Courtney was talking.  
"-and your stupid story?"  
"Sure, sure, Princess." Duncan replied to her. "Whatever floats your boat."  
"Shut up! What about you, Annie?" Courtney said, turning to me. I rolled my eyes. As everyone else, except her, had revealed their fears, I ought to as well, shouldn't I? Of course, I wouldn't tell them my worst fear, that would just be stupid. I drew a canine form in the dirt before me with the stick I picked up.  
"Oooh, wolves? Those things scare me something awful too!" Beth said. I slapped my forehead and added a collar to it.  
"Oh, I don't usually see a wolf that wears a collar." Lindsay said. I almost growled in annoyance as I wrote in the dirt with the stick:  
Not Wolf, Dog Only.  
"Only dogs, not wolves, or even coyotes?" Heather asked, "Why?" I crossed my arms. I wasn't going to say even if I wasn't pretending to be mute. "Okay, fine, don't tell me. See if I care." I shan't, you won't, and we shall never speak of this again.  
The next morning began, same as any other. I woke up, began training, harvested and took care of my berries. Had breakfast. Went for a swim to wash myself off. Then Chris came in. And whistled.  
"Campers," the obnoxious, annoying man said in the weirdest voice I'd ever heard from him. "Your next challenge is a little game I like to call: Phobia Factor!" Like fear factor? Alright I can- …Crud. "Prepare to face, your worst fears!" If I had to face my worst fear, everyone here would die. It's that dangerous. Guess what it is. Go on, guess. And it's not a nuclear explosion, but about as powerful.  
"Worse then this?" LeShawna asked showing her food, which looked like an undead sausage, before sticking her tongue out in disgust.  
"We're in trouble." Gwen said. And how.  
"Now, for our first victims…" Chris said, "Heather! Meet us all in the theater. Iiiiiiiit's… SUMO TIME!" Heather then had a relatively long spit take, right onto Trent. "Gwen, you, me, the beach?" Ew. Why'd he word it like that? "A few tons of sand." Gwen gasped.  
"Wait," Lindsay said, "How'd they know those we're your worst fears?" Gwen face-palmed herself.  
"Ugh, because we told them?" She slumped down onto the table and Trent began to pat her back.  
"At the campfire, last night." Trent explained. Lindsay stood up.  
"Wait, they were listening to us?"  
"It's a reality show, Einstein. They're always listening to us." Gwen told her, annoyed.  
"That's like, eavesdropping!" Lindsay exclaimed, horrified.  
"Chef Hatchet!" Chris exclaimed towards the chef. So his name was Hatchet? Gee what a, pleasant name. "Didn't you have a special order for Tyler here today?" Chef nodded and held out a deep fryer to him. With what looked like a deep fried chicken. How the Orre did you get that in that shape? Nervously, Tyler picked it up and, very carefully, and by carefully I mean slowly, took a bite. A chicken popped out, causing Tyler to scream. How the chicken even got in there is beyond me. What I do know is, Tyler wasn't going to stop anytime soon. Eventually, we all just started doing other stuff. Tyler couldn't stay conscious without taking a breath in forever. Duncan, DJ, Geoff, Bridgette and I played go fish. In case you're wondering how I do that, when I'd say 'Go Fish' I simply point to the card pile. And now you know. And knowing is half the battle. Finnaly, after about half an hour (with Duncan the only one with two wins under his belt, as opposed to the rest of us who had one each) Tyler collapsed.  
"Yeah." Chris said. "We'll be cutting this out. Chef, take Tyler to Life Support."  
Chris then led us out to a one of those blow-up wading pools. And it was filled with worms. I hope Chris's donating those to an orchard or farm when he's done. Or both, considering how many there are. Overall, my reaction may have been the best. Courtney was holding onto Duncan's arm, DJ threw up, Owen fainted, the Pansy, and the other girls just looked horrified, except for Beth.  
"You're turn, Beth. Hop on in there!" Chris said, sadistic as ever. But it wouldn't work this time. Beth simply shrugged, and did as asked. No surprise, worms aren't bugs. They're part of a different kind of animal. The name escapes me, but they aren't bugs. After being submerged for a few seconds, Beth popped back out. With who knows how many in her mouth. Her cheeks were puffed, and I clearly saw some worms in her mouth. Ew. "And Beth sets the bar way up there." Chris announced. The Gopher's cheered, and Owen even popped back up with a 'Yeah!'. Then he saw her braces and collapsed. Again. Chris led us to two stump-chairs, and forced Sadie and Lindsay down onto them, then showed them these brow wigs. They were instantly terrified. I arched a non-viewable eyebrow. I didn't see anything wrong with them. Apparently, Owen didn't either, because after Chris had moved behind the two girls for some reason, Owen grabbed one and began to dance. His weirdness knows no bounds. After Chris had led us to a pen, and pushed me in. I became, terribly aware of what was happening. Okay, okay, I can do this. It's just a dog. Just a little friendly, doggy dog. A puppy. …I can't do it! I'm useless, weak, stupid! I can't, I have to, I can't, I have to…  
Chris opened up the cage and the next thing I knew, I was five years old and back in Rio. My headscarf and disguise was gone. The evil policeman I had blocked out for so long grinned at me.  
"Matar aquela garota demonio!" He snarled. I'd rather not go into what that means. His Doberman, his giant, huge, Doberman, leered at me. It had teeth like knives and was twenty times my size. No, fifty! I ran, and it chased after me. It was like a kitten begin chased after by a train! I closed my eyes, praying it was a nightmare. But it never was. I smacked hard against a dead end. I turned back terrified, to see the drooling hellhound glaring at me. Ready to sink it's teeth into me. To reopen the scars it had given me yesterday, that barley healed, to kill me… No. No! NO! I attacked the demon, knowing full well it would cost me my life. I'm a useless waste of skin anyway, but it won't hurt any other street kids! The next thing I knew, I was back in fetal position, inside a tent. I heard a groan and saw someone, who was blue in the face.  
"You okay, Annie?" I heard a familiar voice ask. A rough but silently caring voice.  
"She's fine. She's awake isn't she?" A much rougher voice, without any care stated. Prick.  
Someone took me by the hand and led me out of the tent and into the forest, to a waiting Buneary.  
"You okay, An?" The person asked.  
"Please be okay, Annie-Onisan!" The Buneary said.  
"Whatever Bun said." Duncan said. Duncan! My memories hit me like a jolt of lightning. I held my head for a bit.  
"Thank Ho-Oh. Sorry to scare you, I lost my memories for a minute there." Duncan and Bun gave me a concerned look each. "I'm okay now, really." I half-lied. I'd never be okay. But I wasn't originally anyway.  
"What happened? One minute your fine, the next you'd think you were running from a possessed airplane." He paused. "Dang, you're rubbing off on me."  
"I'll explain later. But only if you explain too. After the challenge, okay?" He nodded.  
"Okay." I turned to Bun.  
"Are you alright, Bun?" Bun nodded slowly, a few tears escaping his eyes. "It's okay, Bun! I won't forget you!" I hugged the little guy, and he hugged me back.  
"Hate to break up the love fest, but we should be heading back. You were out of it for a while." I nodded, and we headed back, and were immediately intercepted by, who else, but Courtney.  
"Where were you! You lost your challenge, and ripped a Poodle apart! How could you be scared of a Poodle?" I withheld the urge to slug her and get it over with. I've been through a lot.  
"Listen Princess. Annie's suffered some head trauma or something. Don't yell at her, or it might happen again." She crossed her arms.  
"Fine. C'mon, it's Heather's turn." The three of us made our way to the stage where there was a very angry looking sumo and a terrified looking Heather. I immediately decided to rethink my earlier thoughts about the Makuhita.  
"Heather stepped up to the plate. Scoring the Gopher's-" The sumo began yelling what was probably supposed to be a war cry, and charged at Heather, who pretty much went into fetal position. "-they're second point on the board." The sumo tripped over Heather and we all watched it bounce away. After that, Chris grabbed Bridgette and pulled her into the woods. Hope she isn't eaten. The second Chris came back, he took us to the Beach, where there was a glass case, and a timer that looked like a tombstone. Oh Chris, you sadistic jerk. He had Gwen get inside. I glared pointedly at him, but at least she wouldn't suffocate. I hope. Chef lowered the casket thing into a hole, and Chris began to fill it up. Trent bent over to her.  
"There's enough air for an hour. You only need to do five minutes." He assured her.  
"As long as we decide to dig you up." Chris said with a smirk.  
"Not funny Chris!" Gwen snapped.  
"Sheesh, take a pill."  
"I'll be listening the whole time." Trent assured Gwen, while handing her a walky-talky. "Just yell for me if you panic and I'll dig you right up."  
"Goodbye cruel world." Gwen said waxing melodramatic. I wasn't sure if that was supposed to be a joke to try and make light of the situation, or if she actually meant it. After Gwen was buried, Chris led everyone (minus Trent, who point blankly refused to go) to the stage, and pushed DJ up.  
"Just hold the snake, dude." Chris said, pointing at the tiny fish tank. Which, now that I look at it, did have a tiny green snake. Duncan clapped for him.  
"Hey, you can do this buddy!" After a few moments, DJ screamed and scurried back.  
"It blinked!"  
"That means she likes you!" Sadie called to him. Personally, I'd get frightened if a snake blinked at me too. They don't have eyelids.  
"It's the smallest snake ever DJ!" Courtney yelled at him. "Come on!"  
"Yeah, but it's slimy… scaly… slithery!" Snakes aren't usually slimy. Ever. Wet on occasion, but not slimy. Being able to blink, however, is disturbing.  
"We need this point, DJ!" Courtney yelled at him. "Suck it up!" All of us simply shook our heads. Even some of the Gophers. "What? We're heading back to loser-vil people." DJ took a deep breath, then, very slowly, put his hand inside the aquarium. When he pulled his hand out, there was a teensy snake on his finger. He smiled, we cheered. Not so slimy, huh DJ?  
"See?" Courtney asked. "Fear is only in the mind." Well then I had one heck of a mind trip. Chris led us… somewhere, and we all saw Trent running for his life from a mime. Dang it, I hate those nasty things!  
"Just talk to him, bra!" Chris said into his megaphone. "Ask him to go away!" Chris checked his watch. "Okay, we've got two minutes 'till Gwen's done. Cody, you're up!" Chris then grabbed Cody and pulled him away, and our group separated as quickly as possible. I was at the beach, then I heard Trent's gasps. I looked over to see Trent standing still and the mime doing… a mime thing.  
"There's no wall there man!" Trent yelled. "Stop being creepy!" Yes. I'm sure that will work. Next thing I knew, Chris had dragged me to the cabins. There was a Celine Dionne standee. You know what, those things are creepy. Duncan had his fists clenched and his eyes wide. I felt sorry for him. I know he wouldn't be happy if he knew that, but I did.  
"She's pretty. She's nice." Courtney encouraged.  
"Just one hug, and you're done." Chris informed him, with a snap of his fingers.  
"Th-that looks really, real man." Duncan said with his voice shaking.  
"Dude, she's made of cardboard! Get in the game!" Tyler yelled, attempting to encourage him.  
"Hey, it's okay if you can't do it." Duncan looked back at the standee and sighed. Then Courtney took his hand. I knew it, she liked him.  
"Alright, I'll try."  
"You can do this." Courtney encouraged. Favorism is bad.  
"Okay, okay…" Duncan took a deep breath and ran up to the standee, and gave it a hug. Yes! Way to go D! Our team cheered. Even Courtney.  
"Duncan! You're awesome!" Courtney yelled, running up to and hugging him.  
"Ha! I did it!" Duncan exclaimed. Courtney then realized what she was doing, and stopped. Immediately. I ran up to and high-fived him as the rest of the team congratulated him. After we all split up (again) I grabbed Duncan and pulled him into the Bass cabin. Seeing as no one was there, I figured it was the perfect opportunity.  
"Alright D, spill."  
"What? About… what?" He asked, half horrified, half playing innocent.  
"You know perfectly well what. Why're you scared of standees? 'Cause they're ugly?" I asked, causing him to snicker. "What?"  
"It's… never mind."  
"No, not never mind! I want to know! Do not make me bring out the mind probe!" I exclaimed mock-dramatically. He tensed.  
"You have a mind probe?" I almost fell over.  
"No, silly."  
"Okay, sorry. Hard to tell with you." I wasn't sure if that was a joke or an insult. I'd like to assume joke.  
"Okay. Funny. But seriously, I could hurt you're head to find out the information. I don't want that. You don't want that."  
"You know, you'd be great in the mafia."  
"You think so? I- ack! Off topic! And it's not Hot Topic either!" Duncan arched half of his unibrow.  
"Pretty random, aren't you?"  
"Yes, and I am proud of that! It's one of the things that makes life fun! Now tell me or I will have you frozen solid!" He blanked.  
"Fine. It happened when I was little, about five or six. My big brother took me to the mall and I managed to get away from him."  
"Why?" I asked.  
"Because he's annoying. He's like Harold, only bigger and really obnoxious."  
"Ah. Please continue."  
"Anyway, I went to the toy store, what kid wouldn't? After about an hour or so, I heard a message saying the mall was going to close. My brother didn't bother to try and find me, so-"  
"Why? Wasn't he in charge of you?"  
"Nah, family doesn't care that much. They'd just wait to have me arrested for trespassing."  
"Harsh."  
"Meh. Anyway, I started to look around and I couldn't find my brother anywhere. Eventually, wandered into a dark room with someone else in it. I didn't know at the time it was the music store storage room. I asked the person for help. No response. I asked again. Still no response. After about 2 minutes of that, the person's eyes began glowing red. Guess what it was."  
"A statue." I said sarcastically. Duncan rolled his eyes.  
"Yeah, well, you get the picture. Anyway, it actually talked. But it wasn't a girls voice. It was a dude's. And it said in a really evil, threatening way, 'I've found you now, Detestar, I'm coming to get you, Duncan. I'm coming to hurt you.' Then the standee moved it's arms towards me, and they turned purple and clawed, and began to come at me, stretching, like something out of a cartoon. I screamed and bolted. That night was the worst of my life. The mall had locked up, and I was trapped. The thing could actually walk and I had to run from it more then once. I know it sounds crazy, but I had a life-or-death match of running hide and go seek with an evil, possessed standee." There was a pause that lasted about half a minute. "I know it sounds crazy-"  
"It doesn't. Not to me at least. And I can certainly see how that would leave a lasting impression on you even if it was only one night." Duncan practically snarled.  
"Only one night?"  
"Yes, but I didn't mean anything offensive. Allow me to shed some light on the situation… The bit that led to my phobia of dogs. And hatred of cops. No offence." Duncan cooled down, then arched a half a unibrow.  
"None taken, cops too?"  
"Yes, well you see, when I was five, I basically had myself and only myself. It's where I learned my street smarts. Anyway, as I left my now-vacant house, I heard a shot and shooting pain in my shoulder. I looked around and saw a cop. Gun still smoking."  
"Ow."  
"No kidding. But I've been in a lot of pain before, so the pain seems dwarfed now. I told the police officer that he must have made a mistake. I'd only just turned five, and there was no reason to shoot me. He didn't care. I had to run, or he'd shoot me again, so I did. Then I heard, it."  
"It?"  
"A dog. A Doberman, to be exact. It chased me. Every day for five years, I met this man. Everyday for five years, he shot at me. Everyday for five years, I had a Doberman, or shall I say Hellhound, chase and attack me. I still remember the day my fear became it's most acute. I was running from him, as always. With the dog in close pursuit. As I was running, I looked back to see it's snarling mouth, and glowing eyes. While I was looking, I smacked into a dead end. The demon dog loomed over me, drool dripping from it's mouth. The policeman gave a whistle, and he was on me in a second. Tearing into me, but mainly, my shoulder. I lost part of the bone that day. It's grown back-"  
"Is that even possible?"  
"I don't know. But impossibilities abound. Anyway, of all the injuries I've ever gotten, that was one of the few that's left permanent scars." I paused, then pushed part of my shirt, and bra, back, revealing the scars, Duncan, who had been sitting up, fell over backwards at the sight of the ugly wounds in my shoulder. I put my shirt's shoulder and bra strap back. "Everyday. Five years."  
"Well- What did your family do about that!" Duncan asked, horrified. He had to have been, he was asking what a parent did.  
"Nothing. Most of the family couldn't care less, 'Dad' openly encouraged it."  
"That's disgusting!" Duncan snarled.  
"You're telling me. I've come to terms with it. Oh, by chance, do you remember the details of the arms?" Duncan closed his eyes.  
"Yes." I took out a piece of paper, and drew on it. I showed it to him.  
"Did they look like this, per chance?" Duncan opened his eyes and paled when he saw it.  
"Yes." I immediately clenched my fists, half destroying the paper in the process.  
"Dark Man." I growled, completely steamed. I could feel the steam coming off my head, even. Duncan arched his eyebrow.  
"Who?"  
"Demon. Evil. Possessed the police officer and dog. And that standee too, apparently. Odd, I thought he only had a grudge against me."  
"A demon? Are you on something?" I arched my eyebrow, he couldn't see it, but still.  
"Yes, the floor." Duncan shook his head.  
"That's not what I meant. You honestly expect me to believe a demon did everything?"  
"Duncan. You've been hanging out with me and a foot-tall, bipedal bunny, that can shoot ice in energy form which freezes whatever it touches. My presence has knocked the camera in the cabin out temporarily, oh. And I can do this." I held up my finger and shadows from the entire cabin whipped out of their spots and began swirling around my finger, in the form of the universe. Duncan jumped up with a yell. I snapped my fingers and they went back to where they were. "I'm umbrekinetic. I control and manipulate shadows and a bit of dark matter. Not anti-matter. Dark matter. Oh, and I'm psychic too. Just don't ask me what'll happen on Tuesday. It won't be pretty." Duncan stared blankly at me. "Joke."  
"…Right. I guess a demon isn't that impossible, then." I nodded.  
"No it is not." Duncan then gave me a suspicious look.  
"How do I know you're not Dark Man in disguise?" He accused. He was learning to be cautious. Good. Unless I had made him paranoid. That would be bad.  
"Fine, how's this…?" I began to unravel my headscarf, I trusted Duncan to keep a secret, before we I finished, we were interrupted by Geoff screaming. Duncan and I looked at each other as I fastened my headscarf back on.  
"C'mon." We said at the exact same time. The second we got to the beach, we saw Geoff being chased around by I miniature could pouring down hail. Don't know how they did that, but I want one! Duncan put his hand to his head.  
"Thank goodness. You never know, 'Dark Man'," he elbowed be slightly in a joking way, "may be around the corner, eh?" I rolled my invisible eyes.  
"Right. You go burn a something, I'll watch Geoff." he shrugged and walked away. I followed Geoff, and managed to run by Trent and Chris with a remote, I stopped and observed them.  
"Can you make the cloud go lower and pelt him harder?" Trent asked Chris.  
"You are one sick dude. But yeah." Chris pushed a button and Geoff ran past, the cloud now completely surrounding his head.  
"Ah, that's awesome." While cruel, I admit, he had a point. Trent then put his hand on his chin. "Hey, you ever feel like you've forgotten something?" Oh crud! Gwen! How could he forget Gwen! I picked up a hand full of sand, threw it at him, then immediately ran to the part of the beach where Gwen was buried. The timer had ran out. Considering how long I'd been out, I couldn't know how much air she had left. I did a quick aura scan of the area. No one here but me and Gwen. I closed my eyes and concentrated. Had I not been wearing a glove, there would have been a Poke' Ball-shaped glowing mark on my left hand. I felt my arm being coated in fur, as it began to shrink. In a few moments, I was a Mew. Now, don't get we wrong, while it was painless, quick, and fluid now, when you first transform, it's as painful and rough as you might expect. Thank Entei it's a one-time thing. I immediately used my transform ability to turn into a Sandshrew and burrow. Fast. For all I knew, she was on her last few seconds of air. Once I was down to half an inch of sand left (Sandshrew are very fast diggers) I transformed back into Mew, then my human me. I dug the remaining half inch out with my hands. Gwen looked dead. Hopefully she was only asleep. Or passed out. As long as she wasn't dead. I opened the latch thing, and had a walky talky thrown at my head. As I rubbed my head, I opened the casket and Gwen started to yell at me, before realizing I wasn't Trent.  
"Annie, you saved me?" She asked, shocked. I looked around then wrote in the sand with my foot:  
I Don't See Anyone Else Around, So Yes  
She looked a little sheepish. "Sorry about, you know, nailing you with my walky talky." I pat her on her shoulder as a way of saying it was okay. "You know we're on different teams, right?" Peh, teams.  
No Reason To Let You Suffocate  
She smiled. Just a bit. "I guess not, thank you." Her smile immediately changed to a scowl and I saw why. Trent came running up.  
"Gwen! You're okay!" He said, relived.  
"No thanks to you!" She growled angrily before storming off.  
"Well," Chris, who was with Chris, said. "That's a half-point for the Screaming Gophers."  
"Half-point?" Trent asked him, annoyed.  
"Well, Annie probably dug her up, and she's a Bass." Thank you oh so much Chris. I despise you. Suddenly there was a boom.  
"What was that?" Trent asked, worried.  
"If I had to guess, I'd say Cody just blew himself up." Chris, if you actually just killed someone, I will kill you. Twice. Using a single piece of spaghetti and a spatula. After I left and played with Bun some more, Duncan dragged me away, it was Tyler's turn.  
"Alright gang, we're in the ninth inning. Tyler, for your challenge, you need to get into this pen for three minutes, with these chickens." Chris bent over and removed the top of the box, revealing… TURKEYS! No, I'm kidding. They were chickens. … Who am I talking to, again? Oh yeah, subconscious audience. Right. Chris pushed Tyler in, who immediately went into fetal position. Tyler, not Chris. Unfortunately.  
"You can do it, Tyler!" Bridgette cheered.  
"Yeah, unless of course you're chicken." Duncan said, doing the chicken wing thing with his arms. Chris watched Tyler rock back and forth, possibly not hearing anyone.  
"I'm not sure we're getting anywhere with this one." Courtney walked over.  
"Tyler this is the last challenge. Quit being such a girl!" Did I mention favorism is bad? 'Cause it is. "You have to do this or we're going to lose."  
"Actually, if you do the math, you can't possibly win." Cody said, punching numbers on his calculator. Why did he have a calculator on him? The world may never know! "The scores six-and-a-half to three." Three? Did I not count? Oh yeah, it didn't. I forgot.  
"Not necessarily." Chris said, somewhat ominously. Wait, who else?  
"Who?" Courtney asked, in the same boat as I. "It can't be me… But I didn't…!"  
"You didn't have to. We're always watching you and your reactions!"  
"I knew it!" Lindsay exclaimed. Alright, I'll bite. What? "Didn't I tell you guys they were eavesdropping?"  
"Oh who cares? It's not going to make a difference." Courtney said, depressed.  
"Let's make this interesting then." Chris said, walking up to us. "I'll triple your points if you complete it." Chris then led us to a huge vat of what looked like lime jelly, which Chef was stirring. I don't know if I'll ever be able to give a better description to Courtney's look then pure, unaltered, dread. Duncan scoffed.  
"You're afraid of jelly?"  
"Shut up!" Courtney immediately snapped. "Only the green kind! It's like sugary, jiggley snot!" Great. Now I'll never be able to eat green jelly.  
"You can face you're fear and dive strait into this pool of jelly," Chris started. "Or, let your team lose yet another challenge." Courtney sighed. She was so ambitious, her choice was obvious.  
"This is insane!" She said, starting to climb. "I could seriously die doing this!"  
"Oh, that is just cruel! It's probably warm by now." Gwen started. I realized what she was doing and rolled my eyes. I don't think Courtney would be affected. "Warm green jelly! Snotty, bouncy… ugh!"  
"You're not going to make me quit!" We'll see about that.  
"That's it! Keep climbin'!" Duncan yelled up to her.  
"She's just trying to psych you out!" Bridgette yelled. Courtney managed to climb to the top and peered over. She looked terrified. I didn't blame her, that looked like quite a fall.  
"Like you said Courtney! It's okay if you can't do it!" Duncan yelled up to her. Taking a hit at her pride? Not a bad strategy. Bridgette, however, didn't seem to realize this.  
"It is? But we'll lose!"  
"I'm coming down!" I heard Courtney yell at us. I felt anger well up inside me. 'Fear is only in the mind', is it? Then you must be one seriously messed up, weak-willed hypocrite. I know who I'm voting off. We hung our heads, the Gopher's cheered.  
"Then there ya' have it." Chris said. "The Gopher's win invisibility this week. Again!"  
Confessional:  
Courtney: *sobbing slightly* I'm so embarrassed. How could I be so weak? I deserve to go home! *Shakes head* Okay, stop it! You're pathetic! Show some confidence Courtney! *Begins crying, then slaps herself*  
Confessional Over  
"Hey, Annie!" Duncan called to me, and I turned. "Who are you voting for?" He asked me, uncertainly. I jabbed my finger at the forest, and after we got to the pond, we began to talk.  
"I'm voting for Courtney. She really messed up today. I don't want to have to take that anymore."  
"Yeah… about that… could you vote for someone else, instead?" I arched a non-visible eyebrow.  
"Why?"  
"Just, not Courtney, okay?" I narrowed my eyes.  
"Why?"  
"Just, don't okay? I still didn't get it, why- oh. Oh!  
"Ah! That must be it!" I exclaimed, making Duncan jump back a foot.  
"What?"  
"You LIKE her!"  
"What? No I don't!"  
"Oh, really?"  
"Really!"  
"Truly?"  
"Yes!"  
"Completely?"  
"Yes!"  
"Voce a ama?"  
"Yes! Wait, what?"  
"Ha!"  
"Aw man, you just asked if I liked her in a foreign language, didn't you?"  
"Yes. Yes I did."  
"Alright, fine, I like her. Just, don't vote her out, okay? Or spread it around."  
"My vote shall be reconsidered and my lips are sealed." I assured my friend, who sighed in relief.  
After that, I headed back towards the confessional, for the only thing I used it for. Voting a team member off. Well, if I can't vote for Courtney, then I'll vote for Tyler. I hated to do it, no match maker wants to separate a couple, unless they were supposed to hook up with someone else in their minds. And that was not the case in my mind.  
"Campers. You've all cast you're votes and made your decisions. One of you is going home tonight and you can't come back. Ever. The first Marshmallow goes to Geoff." Chris tossed the marshmallow to the stunned cowboy. "Next is Duncan…" And it went like that until we were down to our three last ones. Bridgette, Tyler, and… Courtney. "There are only two marshmallows left on this plate." Chris announced. Noooo. Really? "The three of you did not complete your challenges today. One of you is going home tonight and can not return. Ever. The next name I'm going to call. Iiiiiis… Bridgette." Bridgette sighed in relief and went to get her marshmallow. I can only imagine Courtney and Tyler's faces. "The final marshmallow of the night goes to, Courtney." Duncan put his hand on Tyler's shoulder.  
"You'll get that chicken next time dude." He assured him. As Tyler walked sadly past Chris, the nasty host smirked:  
"It looks like a new pecking order has been established here."  
"It's not like he could cry, fowl." Duncan joined in.  
"Time for Tyler to, fly the coop." Geoff said. Chickens can't fly.  
"He will be flying high tonight!" Bridgette joined. Again, chickens can't fly. Courtney stood up.  
"Okay, that's enough!" I snuck off and sent out one of my Pokemon to follow the boat, and report to me later. Poliwag. I heard Tyler scream and looked up to see the boat that was going away was covered in chickens. That sadistic jerk.  
Confessional:  
Lindsay: Aw, I'll never forget our time together Tyson-ah, Tyler! *Blows a kiss* Bye!  
Confessional over


	9. Chapter 8: to be rewritten

Chapter 9: Playas dos Annie  
The next day, we got our first full two days off, and I decided to check Poliwag's report.  
"You see, Annie, the boat never leaves the island!" Poliwag told me.  
"Figures."  
"They take you around that rock, then double back so you can't see it and go to a separate island that's only partially separate!"  
"So, if I understand correctly, there's a sandbank type thing separating the islands?"  
"Exactly!"  
"Can you show me, Poliwag?" I asked.  
"Okay!" Poliwag took me to an odd spot at the edge of the forest, and stopped.  
"What now?" I asked.  
"These trees weren't here before!" Poliwag insisted.  
"Well then, where'd they come from? They didn't just randomly grow out of nowhere." I stated. I looked around, and noticed the ground at the edge was… wrong. I punched the edge. My hand collided with a very large mirror. "Eh?" I asked, rubbing my knuckles. This was a job for my feet. I kicked it hard, being careful not to hit it in a way that would shatter it, and it fell over, revealing… exactly what had been promised on the pamphlet. Yeah, yeah that figures. "Return, Poliwag." I said, returning the Poliwag to a blissful half-sleep. I walked carefully along the sandbank, before suddenly losing my footing and falling underwater. Fricka-blankin-raggah-lemper…! Okay, I'm good. I swam back up and crawled back onto the sandbank. Great, now I'm soaked. I looked around, transformed into a Mew, and used my psychic powers to fling the water off of myself. I turned back into a human and kicked a chunk of wet sand into the hole. "Stupid pit." I turned and continued walking towards the spa place, continually looking back and forth between it, and the ground, in case Chris decided to pull another stunt. He did. Twice. I jumped over them and continued on my way. I said hi to a Magikarp (how that got here I'll never know) and discovered something really annoying. The sandbar ended a good three yards away from the dock of the place. Oh well, that would probably be why the boats take them, instead of forcing them to walk, as well as keeping up the illusion that they were actually going home. I shrugged, unwrapped my scarf revealing my spikey, messy black-and-green hair, stuffed the scarf in my backpack and, for the lack of a better idea, jumped into the water and began swimming. It was actually pretty refreshing. I saw up to the dock quickly and reached my hand up to grab the dock's edge- and was promptly interrupted by a scream. Sigh, Katie…  
"Monster!" What? I wasn't covered in seaweed or anything. How did she think I was a monster? A female Jason, maybe, but a monster?  
"Katie, Calm down-! For the love of-! I didn't see anything!" I heard Noah say, annoyed. I jumped out of the water, landing on my feet. Everyone (everyone being the kicked off campers) either paled or screamed. Or, in Eva's case, charge. I walked backwards to the edge and, as she punched, I jumped to the side in half a second. Thank goodness for aura, I couldn't see anything. I rubbed water out of my eyes and shook my head like a Poochyena would, blinked the remaining water out of my eyes, and saw what I had thought. All the faces looking at me were white. Which was particularly disturbing on Noah and Katie, who had the same skin color as I. I looked behind me to see Eva grabbing the dock with a very angry scowl on her face. She reminds me way too much of a Primape. At least that's in their biology. Despite the obviously large risk, I put my hand down to help her out of the water. She blanked. For a good six seconds. Then she took my hand and I pulled her up.  
"Why…" She started then trailed off. I grinned.  
"What, I can't help my teammate?" She blanked again, then punched me in the gut before I could react.  
"YOU TRAITOR!"  
"What? What did I do!"  
"Voted me off!"  
"When!" I yelled back, this was actually somewhat fun.  
"WHEN I WAS VOTED OFF!"  
"BELIEVE THAT IF YOU WANT! I VOTED FOR HAROLD!"  
"WHY SHOULD I BELIEVE YOU!"  
"I DON'T KNOW! WHY ARE WE YELLING?"  
About ten minutes after that, Eva long since had calmed down and was in the hot tub. After everyone had figured out I was the mysterious girl in the giant headscarf, Katie bombarded me with questions about Sadie.  
"Is she okay?"  
"Yes."  
"Is she going okay?"  
"Yes."  
"Is she doing well in the challenges?"  
"Yes."  
"How hard has she been playing?"  
"Yes."  
"…Have you been listening to my questions at all?"  
"Yes."  
"Are you not listening to me?"  
"Yes."  
"RAGH!" She stalked off, and I heard Noah chuckle a bit. I walked around, meeting up with Ezekiel. He practically jumped out of his swim trunks.  
"AH! I'm- It's- I-"  
"Have I mentioned I forgave you already?" I said with a sickeningly sweet smile. I wasn't going to trick him, but I could be random to a fault at times. And at the moment, I felt like being uncharacteristically sweet. And I had forgiven him already anyway.  
"Wha-What?" He asked, terrified, sensing somehow that I wasn't normally this sweet. Maybe he was able to watch the show somehow.  
"When you were leaving." I said, regaining my normal stature. "You said you were sorry about being sexist earlier. And I forgave you." I explained.  
"Y-You did? Wait, you heard me?" He asked, nervously.  
"Yes, and yes." He looked at me, I saw fear coming out of eyes, in spades. No doubt Eva played a hand in that. "If it helps, I didn't vote you off." That seemed to do it.  
"Really?"  
"Really. But one thing you should know, if you start the 'really really' game, or some variation, I will smack you." I said plainly, he seemed a bit taken aback, but respected my words. He nodded, grabbed and shook my hand vigorously, thanking me continually.  
"Thank you, eh, thank you, eh, thank you, eh, thank you, eh, thank you…"  
"Zeke, Zeke, ZEKE!" I finally yelled. He yiped.  
"Y-Yes?"  
"I just wanted you to let go of my hand." I informed him. He blushed.  
"S-Sorry, eh." I pat him on the head.  
"It's okay. You have a strong grip, you realize that?" He blushed, a bit.  
"Thank you, eh."  
After that, somewhat awkward, moment, I joined Noah in the pool. I felt bad, for some reason. Tyler, most likely.  
"Hi." I greeted, somewhat awkwardly.  
"Hi." He greeted back, just as awkwardly. Okay, this wasn't going well…  
"How have you been?" He glared at me, why I had no clue.  
"I'm out of the running for a hundred thousand dollars. How do you think I've been."  
"Good…?" I asked, blinking in confusion. He wasn't training himself, and so he didn't gain anything from the challenges. The tortuous, humiliating, mentally scarring challenges. I can't see a downside to that. He smacked his forehead.  
"I. Lost. A Hundred. Thousand. Dollars. How is that a good thing!" I nearly fell into the water from the unexpected outburst.  
"…It matters?" His eyes widened before turning to slits and growling slightly.  
"You're still in the competition, aren't you!"  
"Only to compete in the challenges." I answered. Why else?  
"What about the money?"  
"I intend to stop at final three if I get that far." I informed him. Completely truthfully. He just stared at me. "What?"  
"What about the money?" He asked me.  
"…What about it?" I asked uncertainly.  
"You don't want it?"  
"No." I answered. He went to calm shock to withheld fury in an instant. I let him growl something inaudible (or at least, not a language) at me before he calmed down.  
"Then why, by the name of all that is written in this world did you enter?" He asked.  
"…Not for money. Training." I told him, which was half true. I didn't want the money, but training was only one reason I entered. Noah arched an eyebrow, completely calm now.  
"Training?"  
"Yep."  
"How's that working out for you?"  
"Poorly." He rolled his eyes and chuckled. His mood swings were starting to worry me. Is he Bi-Polar or something? "Thank you, by the way." He raised an eyebrow.  
"Excuse me?"  
"For the…" I paused, trying to think of what to call it. "Moonlight thing. It convinced me to stay."  
"And that worked out so well for me." He said bitterly. We continued talking for a while, and he experienced no more mood swings. Eventually, I heard a splash and Noah and I looked over to see Justin popping his head up from the water, bringing a mirror with him, and smiling at it.  
"He gives Narcissist a new meaning." I growled. Noah didn't look any happier about the 'model' either, but then chose to look at me.  
"You aren't swooning like every other girl?" I shook my head.  
"No, why would I?" I asked.  
"Because he's, well, hot." I arched an eyebrow, and he jabbed his finger behind him. Katie and Eva had both fallen over, hearts in their eyes. I groaned.  
"I care more about personality. He doesn't seem to have one. Nor a sense of humor." I told Noah. HE had a sense of humor. And he definitely had a personality. Even if it was laced excessively with cynicism and sarcasm. Just like me.  
"Oh, he has one. A sick, twisted one." Noah snarled, looking at the boy, who swam over.  
"Hey Annie." He said, flashing me a smile. As much as I loathed the boy for no reason, he had yet to give me a reason not to be polite.  
"Hello Justin." I replied, before picking up a drink from the drink bar. How or why there's a drink bar in the middle of the big pool, I don't know. Mmm, orange juice, my favorite. Justin looked liked he'd been slapped in the face. Noah looked like he was about to explode from pent-up laughter. I stopped sipping my orange juice (Wahh!) "Uh, something wrong?" I asked.  
"Uh, is that it?" Justin asked. I cocked my head in confusion.  
"Is what what?" I asked, confused. Noah had to put his hands over his mouth to contain his laughter. Justin still looked like he had been smacked. And I was still confused.  
"Just, a… hello?" Justin asked, with the exact tone you'd expect if he'd been slapped from nowhere and didn't lose his temper.  
"Uh, what else would I say? 'How's the weather?'" I asked. I think Noah was going to give himself a heart attack if he didn't let the laughter out soon.  
"Maybe a compliment about my awesome body, or teeth, or knees, or ankles, or just a swoon." I arched an eyebrow.  
"Why would I swoon?" I asked, not getting it at all. It is not possible that he has never met a girl that didn't swoon for him. His eyes bugged out in the most comical way.  
"I'm-I- We're talking. You, Annie, are talking to me, Justin. Hottest thing on the planet."  
"I thought that was the center of the Earth." I said. I mean, it was, wasn't it?  
"That's me." He said proudly. I poked him.  
"You're not made of magma. That proves your not." He looked even more shocked and horrified, if that was humanly possible.  
"I- You sure your female?" I arched my eyebrow, keeping my anger inside.  
"Very much so." I told him, my voice quivering with annoyance and anger.  
"Then… you're a lesbian?" Okay, I have a line too. And Justin just crossed it, as anyone could tell from the loud smack that echoed across the plaza. Hey, Justin already looked like somebody smacked him across the face. He just had a red hand print to prove it now.  
"That was way out of line." I snarled. He not only insulted me, but the guy I liked too.  
"A girl just… slapped me. And, it, hurts! OW!" Delayed reaction, most likely from shock. Noah and his lungs couldn't take it anymore, and he laughed so hard he fell into the water. "It's not funny! I have to keep my cheekbones in perfect condition for my modeling agency! Or, my soon-to-be modeling agency." I pulled Noah out of the water, the bookworm still shaking with the remains of his laughter, and huge grin irremovable from his face. Justin simply left, muttering something about 'unpleasable lesbians'. I chucked my glass at him. Hard.  
"Ohmygosh, how could you do that?" I heard a familiar voice say, and turned to see Katie at the edge of the pool, looking horrified.  
"What?" I asked, not getting the problem. Had I not hit him hard enough?  
"You, like, hit Justin!" She said, horrified.  
"…So? He called me homosexual. Besides, a 'big, strong' guy like him shouldn't be upset by being smacked by a weak girl like me." I saw the startled looks I was getting. "Hypocritical humor. Justin was shocked it hurt so I decided to put that out there. I don't think girls are weak. Eva proves that."  
"But, he's Justin! He gives handsome a new name, he's, like, hot as a volcano! Rawr!" Katie said, becoming giddy quickly.  
"Again, he insulted me. I'm not a Lesbian, and would rather not be referred to as such."  
"But, he's like, so hot!"  
"Okay, first, he's not that appealing. Second, that doesn't give him the right to be an oxter." Katie looked at me weirdly, as did Noah. Then the girl got mad.  
"He is so appealing! You wouldn't know good looks if it hit you upside the head! You, you…"  
"B-Witch? Brat? Annoying idiotic mibletoe? I've heard them all, pigtails." She turned and stormed off, angry. I looked at Noah, who had and arched eyebrow. "Oxter is an insult, right?"  
"It means armpit."  
"That's an insult as far as I'm concerned." Noah chuckled.  
"How come you were so polite to him earlier?"  
"Didn't give a reason not to be. Not like that will be the same at any point in time anymore. The idiot." I shook my head. Ah, Justin. He could have been nice. He wouldn't have had an enemy in me. And I could be terribly sadistic. Noah arched an eyebrow.  
"What, did you like him?"  
"Orre no, but I want all the friends I can get. In and out of the game."  
"Any particular reason?"  
"Nope." I lied. "True Friends and all that." I stopped and groaned. "I cannot believe I just referenced that."  
"What?" Noah asked.  
"Country song." He groaned too. We began talking. I found out that Justin had decided to use Noah to prove how much more 'hot' he was than other guys. And it ended up with Noah humiliated. Time and time again. Like this one time that apparently involved spaghetti noodles. I didn't get anything else out of him about that, but it was apparently really bad. I also managed to get the drift that he liked someone here. I'm no rocket scientist, but I do know that cemented what I already knew. And I knew who it was.  
He also told me the center of the Earth wasn't made of magma.  
"What does everyone see it that di-"  
"Noah!" I yelped, not wanting him to curse. He looked shocked for a second.  
"What?"  
"It's just… I don't like that kind of language." He arched his eyebrow.  
"How old are you?" He asked.  
"Sixteen." He said no more on the subject after that. I didn't quite get that. We talked about our normal living conditions…  
"Why, for the love of Green Menace, do you sleep in a tree?"  
"Who's Green Menace?"  
About the different food…  
"Those hamburgers look way better than the evil, crawling, Muk wannabe's Chef serves us…"  
"What's a Muk?"  
And other things.  
"All I'm saying is, if you have elements and such in a game, Poison, Toxin, or whatever should beat those without any specialty. Especially unspecialized fighter classes." Noah continued to rant.  
"Because it would mess them up inside, I get it. I think they should be neutral. Seems more natural, since some would argue the opposite." I told him. That, and the Poison element was neutral towards Fighting. We were walking through the forest, at this point.  
Really, elements were one of the few topics we could talk about openly easily, so long as Noah didn't realize I knew all about elements in real life. And not the periodic table either. That's hard. Elements with Pokemon and such were common place, no need to bat an eye at, in my perception of the world. For Noah, they existed solely in video games and the like. "What about Darkness, though? If there was no Light element, what would it be good against? I'm thinking Psychic, or whatever class uses minds, mages maybe?"  
"I don't think a mage uses Psychic powers, unless you count spells as such. And why would Darkness beat out Psychic?" Noah asked, taking a sip from his lemonade.  
"Well, it wouldn't just be Darkness. Any insect-type element or supernatural, ghost kind of thing could work too. Those are three common irrational fears, after all, and since Psychic works with the psyche, the fear-inspiring elements might mess up your concentration and stuff." I shrugged. "Ugh, but if one more person says something about 'Love' being an element that could counter it, I swear, I'll sock 'em in the jaw."  
"Ugh, I can understand that. The only games or anything with 'Love' as an element are… er, the pits. To put it mildly. With maybe one exception." I thought for about five seconds.  
"Sailor Moon being an exception? The Japanese version, of course."  
"Yes! Thank you! Finally, a girl in real life who prefers the Japanese version!"  
"I don't get why others don't watch that as much. It's more mature. I mean, I'm not saying anything against the little kids and the older ones who don't know how to watch it, but some of those dubs were really, really stupid. At least, when compared to the Japanese version. I mean, the dub handled that one with Nephrite's shadow, not to mention the one with the Senshi's first death, just horribly. There are just no words to describe something that bad. No polite ones anyway."  
"Hey, love birds!" I heard a familiar, annoying model-to-be yell.  
"Not lovebirds." I growled, knowing Justin wouldn't believe me. Noah blushed slightly and yelled back at him.  
"First, we're not love birds, second, what do you want?" Next thing I knew, Noah was coated in a brownish-red liquid. And his lemonade was ruined. "What is this- ah! My eyes! It burns!" I flicked some off of Noah's sweater vest and tasted some. Then began sputtering.  
"Hot dog! It's Hot Sauce!" I exclaimed. Noah groaned.  
"You had to say that, didn't you?"  
"Like it would've stopped you."  
"See that, ladies? I'd look this good," Justin ripped his shirt off, "coated in Hot Sauce, but no man, especially not The Bookworm, could do that."  
"So, you're not a real man then, huh?" I asked. Grinning like the sadistic maniac I am, imagining him as a pork chop. I don't know why, possibly my Demon Genetics. Or maybe my mind was trying to have fun. Either way.  
"Huh?"  
"You just said no man could look good coated in Hot Sauce. And that you would. So are you a girl? Or some twisted combo of science?" I said with a smirk.  
"Well, at least I'm not… lesbian!"  
"So you're a straight girl than?" I asked, smile now somewhat plastered-on from the insult. Justin blanked. Then said something I'd rather not repeat. "Oh, really?" I asked, sickeningly sweet. I walked over to him with a smile on my face, put my hand on his chest… and promptly kicked him where the sun don't shine. The others, even the girls, winced. I can't do much, but I can kick. Hard.  
"Ouch." Tyler said, wincing. Justin blacked out.  
"Wow. I didn't think I kicked him that hard. Maybe he just can't take pain." I looked around, noticing Noah was still covered in hot sauce. Grinning like a madman at Justin's expense, but still coated in hot sauce. "Anyone know where I can get a towel?" Ezekiel shrugged.  
"I'll get one, eh." He ran off and the others separated. I walked back to Noah, smile on my face. He paled.  
"Don't say it, don't you dare say it." He pleaded.  
"Sorry Noah, but I have to." My smile grew wider. "Look who's hot now!" Noah groaned and I laughed.  
"You just had to do that." He groaned.  
"That's what I said." I replied, as Ezekiel came back with a towel. "Thanks Zeke." I said, helping Noah get the hot sauce off. And no, weirdos, he didn't remove his clothes. He excused himself to change, and I talked a bit with Katie. We didn't have much in common, except for the fact that we were both girls and are (were, in her case) on the Killer Bass. She didn't like Duncan, that was reason enough for conflict. I wasn't a fan of Sadie, but I wasn't stupid enough to say this. By the time we stopped talking, we were on somewhat better terms, as long as Justin was not mentioned. Eventually, Noah came back wearing a white T and shorts. I whistled.  
"Looking good."  
"Oh be quiet."  
"No really, Noah, Alexander Dregno has nothing on you!" Katie said, joining in on the teasing. I'm not sure who she was talking about, but the faint blush on Noah's face was worth it. I wanted to make a crack that involved a Milotic, but I don't think either of them would understand it.  
"Model's got nothing on you." I said, smirking. "You going to dive in here with that white shirt on, handsome?" I continued to tease.  
"I can't just change into different clothes without being ripped apart, can I?" Noah asked, annoyed by all our teasing. Katie and I looked at each other, then back at Noah.  
"Nope." The two of us said at the exact same time. Noah groaned.  
"Hello girls." A familiar voice said. Again. Dang it.  
"Hi Justin." Katie said giggling. Noah glared.  
"Hello thing." I said in complete monotone, causing him and Katie to glare. Justin then smiled. Uh oh. Was he actually using his brain? That couldn't be good.  
"Hello girls. I decided to show you something you can't resist."  
"You already greeted us girls, Justin." I pointed out.  
"Well, that's because-"  
"You want to show them something. I'm pretty sure that, if no one else, Annie gets it." Noah said, crossing his arms.  
"So, show us your surprise oh-mighty-thing-of-supposed-handsomeness." I said in complete deadpan. Justin crossed his arms and sunk underwater. Katie nearly burst out in tears.  
"I just lost my chance to talk to the hottest guy on the planet!" She whined.  
"Seriously. I can't be the only girl that cares more for personality." I said to no one in particular. Katie looked slightly embarrassed.  
"Okay, that's important, I'll give you that." She said, looking a bit sheepish. Suddenly Justin burst out of the water. Without a shirt. Needless to say, Katie swooned. Right into the pool. And didn't get up immediately. It took me three and a half seconds to realize the gravity of the situation. "KATIE!" No no no no no no no no no no no no. I wasn't losing another friend to the waters. Never. Never again. I dove directly in and found her unconscious at the bottom of the pool. I swam. Fast. I scooped her up in my arms and swam towards the air. When I surfaced, I placed her on the side of the pool.  
"Is she okay?" Noah asked, concerned. Which was a bit odd for him. But considering the circumstances…  
"I-I don't know. I hope so." I said, and started pressing up and down on her stomach. "C'mon, c'mon, shouldn't this work?" I yelled/asked. Panic was overtaking my normal thinking. Everything was telling me this was a repeat of Arcine. But it couldn't be. It can not, must not be! Katie and I were starting to get along, become friends, no… I turned to my bookworm friend. "Noah, can you take care of her? I need to do something important." Noah looked at me with wide eyes.  
"You're just going to… leave her here?" He asked, shocked and horrified.  
"No, you have to stay and help her. I can't help. I need to check something. I'm sorry I can't help." I told him, truthfully terrified she might not make it. Not like I could help with drowning accidents anyway. As I left quickly, I grabbed Zeke. "Please come with me, Zeke." I noticed Tyler fiddling with a video camera for some reason. As I ran past, I swiped it. "I'll bring it back, sorry Tyler!" I told him as I rushed away. I made sure not to touch it directly, by having solid darkness on my hands. Yeah, my powers break the laws of physics, so what? I walked into the forest, let go of Ezekiel, and gave him the camera.  
"What should I do with this, eh?" He asked, looking at the video camera.  
"Record what Justin and I talk about."  
"Why?" He asked.  
"I need to prove something. Don't worry though, I don't like him." I ran off and dragged Justin into the forest, him struggling the entire time.  
"What do you want, weird girl?" He asked. I could see Ezekiel recording us behind a tree. Good, for a second I was worried he couldn't use it.  
"Katie nearly drowned because of you." I told him icily. He shrugged.  
"Yeah, so what?" He asked. My eyes widened.  
"She might die! Because of you! Don't you even CARE!" He shrugged.  
"Not really. Less ugly people, the better. It'd be better if it was her fat friend, but hey, less freaks the better. And hey, bookworm likes her. There's another good reason." I widened my eyes, then they got thin as slits. I let out a small growl, it was taking all my self-control to keep my demon self from taking control. I didn't need an island of dead people, thank you very much.  
"I. Don't. Like. Sadie. Much. Either. But. I. Don't. Want. Her. To. Die!" I said, taking a cleansing breath between each world. "And. KATIE ISN'T UGLY!" I yelled at him, stalked up to him, tying his feet with his own shadows, and delivered a kick to his jaw, knocking him out. "Okay, Annie, calm down. Before you do something drastic." I told myself, taking a few more breaths while singing Make A Wish in my head. It took two minutes to calm myself down. "Okay. I'm good. You can stop hiding now, Zeke." Zeke popped out of a bush.  
"You're scary when you get mad, eh." He said.  
"You don't know the half of it. Did you get all that?" I asked, noticing that the shadows around Justin's ankles were starting to dissolve. Wait, what?  
"Yeah, eh, I made sure to have the camera poking out of the bush." He told me, holding the camera out to me. I didn't need it blowing up now. Not to mention to probably belonged to Tyler.  
"Can you hold onto that for a bit? I need to show someone that. C'mon." I told him, taking his arm and bringing him over to a recovering Katie and anxious Noah.  
"Are you alright, eh?" Ezekiel asked Katie. "I saw what happened."  
"I don't remember what happened. But I'm okay." She said, then glared at Ezekiel. Why do you care any-ack!"  
"Oh thank Ho-Oh!" I exclaimed, hugging Katie, happy she was alive and well.  
"Who's Ho-Oh?" Katie asked me, shocked but returning the hug.  
"Never mind. I'm just glad you're alive." I told her, letting go of her.  
"It was, like, so strange. Everything was dark, and I heard you and Noah calling me. Then you stopped and Noah sounded, like, more scared. Then there was this weird electric shock, and then I'm, like, fine."  
"Weird shock?" I asked her, not entirely sure what she meant.  
"It was like, so strange. I felt my entire body going limb, then I'm, like, jumpstarted and twitching. It was like sticking my finger in an electric socket. But it didn't really hurt, it just mostly felt weird." She told me. That sounded like an electric-type Pokemon had shocked her to help her. Or maybe a newborn electric-type testing out it's powers. I know. It's happened to me more than once. I put my finger to my chin in thought.  
"I have a theory about what that was. But I'll need to talk to you first to confirm it, Noah." I said, looking at the bookworm. "But later. I have something that I need to show you first, Katie." I turned to the resident prairie boy. "Zeke. The camera?" He nodded, flipped the little viewing thing out so we could watch the video, and pressed play. I saw myself confronting Justin.  
"Yeah, so what?" He asked. My eyes widened.  
"She might die! Because of you! Don't you even CARE!" Video-me yelled at Justin. Video-Justin shrugged.  
"Not really. Less ugly people, the better. It'd be better if it was her fat friend, but hey, less freaks the better." I held my breath for the next part, not wanting to embarrass Noah. Ezekiel, however, saw my danger signs, and hopped into the bush luckily at that moment. The next part of Justin's speech went unheard. Drowned out by rustling leaves. Video-me widened her eyes, then, well, you know. Slits, growl, I already narrated this. Video-me started stalking up to Justin.  
"I. Don't. Like. Sadie. Much. Either. But. I. Don't. Want. Her. To. Die!" I said, taking a cleansing breath between each world. "And. KATIE ISN'T UGLY!" As in reality, it showed me kicking Justin in the jaw, effectively knocking him out. The video ended, and I turned back to see Katie with her hand over her mouth in tears, and even Eva and Tyler, who had come over during the tape, were looking concerned. Noah was holding Katie's hand, for fear she would do something drastic if he let go for even a moment. Finally, Katie burst out sobbing.  
"I can't believe I didn't realize Justin is like, so mean!" She cried, hugging Noah a little to tight.  
"Can't… breath…" Noah struggled to say.  
"Why," Eva growled. "are all the really good looking guys evil?"  
"Hey girls." I heard a familiar evil voice say, and saw Justin smiling at me, Katie and Eva. What he didn't expect was an array of angry and hateful glares.  
"You better get out of here, Justin." Tyler said angrily. "Or we'll mess your face up!" Justin arched an eyebrow.  
"Uh, excuse me?" Justin asked, sounding somewhat amused. His level of amusement clearly dropped, however, when Eva got up and faced him, angry.  
"You've had your lights kicked out. How'd you like them punched out?" She threatened. Justin immediately beat a hasty retreat.  
"Th-Thanks guys." Katie said between sobs. "It's so nice to have friends like you!" She said, finally letting go of Noah.  
"Don't get me wrong." Eva said gruffly. "I just hate guys that pretend to be nice and sweet, while getting everything with their looks. Especially when they turn out to be evil. I didn't do it for you." She said. And with that, she turned and walked away, back to her dumbbells. Tyler left as well, clearly intent on pestering Eva into letting him use one of her weights. Katie looked somewhat shocked and confused, but not hurt.  
"Well, I kicked him for you." I said. "Just putting it out there." Katie smiled.  
"Thank you like, so much!" She said with a smile.  
"Justin went too far this time." Noah said, fuming. "He's always humiliating me. Now he has the gall to hurt Katie."  
"Aw, you're so sweet when you're not being a total jerk." Katie said, kissing Noah on the cheek. She didn't seem to notice when he turned beet red.  
"Justin's basically the opposite of you, Noah. Like your Anti-Self. You're mean-ish on the outside, but sweet on the inside. Whereas Justin acts nice but he's rotten on the inside." I said. Katie nodded in agreement.  
"An Anti-Me? That's, actually very accurate. He doesn't seem to like using his brain or reading either." Noah said with a shrug. I smiled.  
"Exactly the opposite of you, right?" I said with a smile.  
"Hey, Annie?" Katie asked. "What did you mean when you said you didn't like Sadie either?" Crud.  
"Well, I'm sorry to say, but you two came off as slightly annoying. Your squee hurt my ears." I told her, choosing my words carefully.  
"Yours and everyone else's." Noah put out. Katie pouted.  
"Aw…" I put my hand on her shoulder.  
"You're cool now that I've gotten to know you, though. And I'm sure it'll be the same way with Sadie." I assured her. "Although considering I don't really speak to anyone at camp, well, with one exception, it will take longer to get to know her." She nodded.  
"She's like, so totally sweet! Our bios got our personalities mixed up though." She told me.  
"Can't imagine how that could happen." Noah stated in complete deadpan.  
"Be nice-ish, Noah." I told him, smiling. "Now, if you excuse me, I'm gonna have a taco." I told them, getting up and going over to the buffet. Eva was at the buffet as well. Man, she gets around. Wasn't she a whiles away practicing her weights like, two seconds ago? "Hey Eva. Weren't you just-"  
"Tyler's having a turn." She said simply. As if on cue, a loud CLANG resounded across the plaza. Followed by a weak 'I'm okay!'  
"Alrighty." I said. Then held out one of my tacos. "Taco?" She shook her head.  
"That was a great kick. Are your arms that strong too?" She asked me. I shook my head.  
"Almost. I've squared off against some tough opponents in wrestling, though. Did you want a match?" I asked. I had the feeling she wasn't very good with people. She shook her head.  
"Not if you mean wrestling. Just arm wrestling." She told me. I gulped down the rest of my taco.  
"Sure." I asked Tyler (who was hopping on one foot, holding his left foot) to set up a table.  
"Sure. I'm just hopping around in pain. Why not?" He asked bitterly. I arched my eyebrow.  
"Okay, just point the way and I'll get it." I said. He pointed over to his left, and I went. He was probably just bitter about being voted out and losing out on making-out time with Lindsay. After Eva and I carried the table out into the open, the match began. She was frickin' tough. I don't know when we attracted a crowd, but we did. It says something for your strength when you can give someone who could wrestle something who's biology it is to fight to the ground a run for their money. It came really close on both of our side a couple of times, but I ended up losing, just barley. I was out of practice.  
"You're good." Eva simply said as the crowd dispersed. Both of us were rubbing our now-sore arms.  
"So are you." I told her with a smile.  
"I'm going to have to wrestle you at some point. It'd be great practice." She said gruffly.  
"Same here. You're one of the toughest people I've ever met and/or sparred." I told her, sensing what she meant. "You want to be, you know, sparring partners?" She gave me a wicked grin.  
"Sounds like an idea." She told me, and we shook hands. Our left hands, of course, considering our right arms were sore.  
Finally, after a few more hours of things such as Katie teaching me and Ezekiel volleyball (we were slow learners), I decided to leave.  
"When you get voted off, I expect a real wrestling match." Eva said with a nod as I put my disguise back on.  
"Say hi to Sadie for me!" Katie said before blanking. "…Oh, right." she smiled, lightly bumping her head with a fist.  
"Good luck." Noah simply said.  
"See ya' again, eh!" Ezekiel told me with a smile.  
"See you guys again." I said, finished covering myself up, then jumped into the lake, heading back for camp. The day afterwards was spent mostly inquiring Duncan about any moves he may or may not have made on Courtney, and ignoring any questions about where I was yesterday. All he'd get was a non-visible knowing wink and smile.


End file.
